


Alkaline

by CitrineNebulae



Category: Alien vs Predator (2004), Alien: Resurrection (1997), Aliens (1986), Predator (1987)
Genre: Action, F/M, Gen, Hijabi Protag, Horror, Other, POV Woman of Color, Science Fiction, non-canon timeline, post-resurrection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-04 21:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 41,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4153884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitrineNebulae/pseuds/CitrineNebulae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nasira Lathan is an ambassador of an interplanetary alliance and an officer of its peacekeepers. Recalled from a mission on an isolated planet, she is returning via commercial starship when an alien scourge breaks out, drawing the arbitrators of an unknown warrior race. In a ferocious and unchecked effort to save the lives onboard, she may just be destroying every hope for peace among the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Audeo

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Colorful Crayola and B.A. Gemar, whose wonderful stories gave me the enthusiasm to try to contribute something to this fandom. Special thanks to Solain Rhyo, who inspired events in this story that will become clear in the future.
> 
> audeo: latin  
> verb; present active audeō,  
> I dare, venture, risk; (poetic) I am eager for battle.

Current Date: 2458  
77 years after the USM Auriga Incident

The bodies fell in mute synchronization. There were two of them, black spots on a leaden sky. Miles away. From the vast distance, a single onlooker watched in horror. She could only imagine them as they might be. Perhaps silenced beforehand, their arms were loose by their sides, hands curled at their thighs. The curve of their backs improbably traced the jagged bulge of the cliff from which they had been flung. Their chins were tipped back, not quite staring toward the impending earth.

Worried lines were etched into chasms around her eyes, dark and defined like black water had slipped in to fill them. She leaned back as though frightened the grim scene would hook into her chest and drag her into its midst, sending her rocketing towards the barren surface of the planet alongside them.

Behind her, the last of a trickling stream of passengers had vanished into the interior of the shuttle, and so she was the only one to see as death hurtled downward and disappeared beneath the distant horizon to strike the earth and be obliterated.

The last wind the planet of Uataislurn had to offer spiraled up the boarding dock, gray fingers playing at the ornamented fabric that framed her dark brown face. It coaxed lost breath back into her and she could move again, if only to make it the rest of the way up into the shuttle.

Nasira let herself fall against the round wall of the booth, directly within. Her long, slender fingers went up to the beads on the crown of her head. She straightened them where they laid across their silken headscarf, tracing back to where they vanished beneath its folds. As she did, she let her eyes drift shut, willing there to be only the redness of her eyelids. No bodies. No great heights. No death.

Uataislurn was a zealot's planet. Its inhabitants subscribed to stringent religious rules and rituals, but they were not perceived as pious, nor were their traditions seen as archaic. Nasira had come to observe their practices for the duration of a seasonal holiday they called Ubrone, but she'd been recalled to a new base, with a new obligation, one that took precedence over attending the holiday of a tiny religious sect on the edge of the galaxy.

Participants of Ubrone adopted a solemn composure, retreating to places of worship alongside family. Past a certain date, movement within the planet's borders was forbidden. No emigration, no immigration. Those who wished to observe must be settled before the holiday's beginning, and those who did not wish must see themselves out.

It was on this the eve of Ubrone that the last transport away from Uataislurn found itself preparing for departure.

Something pushed past Nasira roughly, jerking her out of her contemplation before she could decide for herself whether the fuzzy splotches still reminiscent in her vision were borne of some religious suicide.

"Pardon me," she apologized, unsure of whether she'd been in the way of the door or not, though she did not recall seeing anyone else on the boarding dock. She said it verbally in Yutovian, the universal language and her best bet for being understood as polite quickly.

Yutovian consisted of three "alphabets": verbal (which worked best for those species that could articulate syllables), clicking (for those that possessed no verbal speech, such as those without mouth or tongue), and sign (for those that could be understood through general body movements, such as the manipulation of digits and appendages). Anyone who claimed to know Yutovian could understand all three.

The hunched frame stopped between her and the passenger area of the shuttle. It turned around.

It was a human male of roughly middle age. Caucasian. Long hair that stringed into dark grey eyes. He carried something under his left arm, and shifted it protectively when she met his eyes.

"Evening," he said, squinting at her in the semi-darkness. He responded in stiff English, which took her aback, and she had to hastily recalibrate her brain to receive it. She could see that he was trying to read her name on her left shoulder, so she provided it.

"Sergeant Nasira Lathan," she said, extending a gloved hand. Though it was not quite the truth. Her ranking could not be translated into human languages quite so easily, as she was the only one of her species in Adrara. The Seraph. The Guardians. The Protectors. Adrara was similar to the older human military, the Colonial Marine Corps, but without any of the supremacy, the entitlement, the misguided patriotism. Adrara aspired to be pacifistic, and was a millennium-old cooperative alliance that encompassed thirty star systems and sixty-three species.

Any of those sixty-three species could serve, but there was exactly one representative for humankind.

One human.

Just her.

Which was why her uniforms - her combat uniform, her service dress, and her current ceremonial regalia (as was easiest for her to be recognized as a member when it was necessary) -were all specially tailored for her human stature. Black boots and pants, a snugly cut blue coat that hit her mid-thigh. Her epaulets were golden, as was the chord that looped its way around her left arm. She was allowed to wear her hijab with no lengthy appealing process, as had been the case when she was in Earth's custody. Her name and rank were embroidered in both Arabic and Yutovian. Even if it hadn't been dim where they stood, this man would have struggled with reading it.

"Right," he said. "You're, uh, A-dray-rah."

"I'm a cadet officer of Adrara, yes," she said, smiling tolerantly. "And you are?"

He seemed to debate. "Marcus."

"May I help you with something?"

He looked her up and down, his lip twisting in a way of which she was long accustomed. The way she held herself to Adrara's standards of articulation and composure, her age, her posture, her headscarf, her monolid eyes - all that was there for his cruel gaze to scrutinize.

He said, "Not now, thanks. Maybe once we're up."

Once the shuttle launched, they'd land on the orbiting spaceport and transfer to their flight vessel.

She nodded. He readjusted whatever he held in his left arm again before turning away.

* * *

Nasira watched the sky curve into darkness and tried to imagine that breaking the atmosphere was smooth. She'd been the last to seat herself and the first to rise, assisting the shuttle crew in unloading its passengers, as was courtesy for someone of her position. The man, Marcus, brushed past her again with no comment as he left the shuttle. Behind him was a boy, older than her by a year or two, with the same pale skin tone as Marcus. The only other human on the shuttle, and apparently too young to be traveling on his own. Father and son, then. She smiled at him, but he had as much to say as Marcus, his eyes flickering up to hers before wrenching forward again.

Their vessel's name translated to 'Cavalier'. It was massive ship, made for much more than ferrying mere handfuls of passengers across the small sea of space between Uataislurn and the more populated world of Thouopra. Their current port was at the end of its route, and once they arrived at Thouopro, the Cavalier would orbit for one local day before setting off into the swollen cluster of systems in the heart of the alliance. Before then, Nasira would transfer from public transport to a closed Adraran flight.

Flight, she thought wryly. Ships like the Cavalier didn't need to be aerodynamic, because they weren't designed to operate anywhere other but a vacuum. And there was no flying in vacuums.

It was shaped like an egg with multiple ovular protrusions - habitation levels, storage bays, and engine rooms - at random intervals, like the gnarled burls on a tree's trunk. The Cavalier doubled as a commercial freight vehicle and galactic cruise ship. The accommodations within the vessel - within all commercial passenger vessels - were meant to suit as many species as possible at once. The atmosphere was stable and breathable for most species, though masks were offered to those who felt it was too different from their natural composition. On such a short flight, temporary habitation would not be necessary. They were to stay within the body of the ship, the fuselage, that made up the largest part, with an ocean of seating spanning the entire floor.

Nasira helped a nimod (a lifeform twice her height with eight long legs, enormous glassy eyes, and ant-like pinchers) lift its possessions into a locker, smiling when it clacked at her appreciatively. She laid her hand across her heart and gave a low bow. The nimod flailed several tiny vestigial arms at her before going to its seat. Around her, several other passengers inclined their heads or bowed their bodies at her before going about their business.

Nasira loaded her own baggage into her designated locker, closing its door to reveal Marcus arguing with the sole security guard on the ship. The guard was a large Oxio with sloping shoulders, a species whose homeworld was the craggy desert planet of Troturn.

She made her way over to them. Marcus's face was scarlet and he was gesticulating hard enough to be a threat to anyone taller than his thigh. Some of this was the sloppy, inexperienced way he was signing Yutovian, but for the most part he kept breaking off and pointing a finger into the Oxio's noseless face whenever he got too worked up.

On the ground beside him was a canister about a foot and a half tall.

She interjected, positioning herself just off from between them, but planting her foot there and leaning her hip in, blocking the Oxio from Marcus' view.

"Please," she said to him, signing for emphasis, a little finger making circles on her sternum. "Calm down. What is the problem?" She said this to both of them, turning slightly without moving from blocking Marcus.

The Oxio rumbled, "I told the human that I needed to search his possessions, as it did not have a checking tag from the space port. He refused me."

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Prono."

Nasira translated for Marcus so that she could be sure there was no misunderstanding, but Marcus' eyebrows remained with a irritable line between them.

"He can't look through this! It's company property, and it's confidential. I told him I submitted a copy of the work order and my permit to carry the canister on my person."

"The cannister? What does it contain?" she asked.

"I told you, it's confidential. You're not an employee."

Nasira said to Prono, "Did you check his permit?"

"I did. The permit is sound, but the serials of the cannister and the work order did not correspond."

Again, she relayed this to Marcus.

"It's not my fault they fucked up their labeling. I can't consent to a search or I'll be penalized."

Nasira frowned. "If it's alright for the work order to be read, why is it not alright for the contents of the canister to be searched? Is it dangerous? It ought to have been carefully shipped rather than carried on your person."

Marcus' mouth worked.

"The work order…"

"Can't he search it in private? He's an employee of the company, and he already has access to the work order. He just needs to confirm the contents as the same as the way they're stated on the forms."

Marcus scowled. His face looked like a smile had never beaten a sneer in a foot race.

"Fine. Whatever you want, man."

Nasira's eyes thinned as she smiled at him. "Thank you for your cooperation. Prono, is that alright with you?"

Prono nodded, and Marcus handed over the cannister with what looked like great reluctance.

On her way to her seat, she spotted Marcus' supposed son sitting in an empty seating bay. Beside him was a seat saved for Marcus. The bays were separated only by aisles, but the isolation of the two humans from the rest of the passengers was plain. Nasira nodded at him as she passed, but the boy did not look at her. She wondered if Marcus would have pitched such a fit with his son nearby, but then decided that he probably would have. He didn't seem the type to show regard for even those closest to him.

Despite the argument, when Nasira sat, she allowed the warmth in her chest to burgeon. As the sole human in Adrara, she was a representative for her planet and her species. It was through her that all future relations with Earth would be determined. For now, humans were only tolerated, as they had not proven themselves worthy of all the stars had to offer. Every civilization that made up the current alliance had already achieved majority peace among its own, and soon after came the technological value to establish a place for themselves.

For the first four hundred years of space ventures, humans were ignorant about the life, other than their own, that surrounded them. Even as human territory had expanded into colonized planets, they'd had no idea of the species systematically avoiding them. But then something had changed, and the alliance chose to present itself, and a tentative treaty formed, and the entire human population was screened, and a single ambassador was selected to test the waters.

That had been Nasira.

She'd spent eight years in Earth's custody before being released and allowed to join Adrara. To learn an upwards of five alien languages. To attend cultural festivities, to advocate in support of her species. To spend the rest of her life proving humans able and willing to share the universe.

From where she sat, she looked up into the enormous glass dome that made up the ceiling. Impractical for a spacecraft, maybe. But it kept the dangers of space out, and offered passengers an unobstructed view of everything the galaxy had to offer as they passed beneath it.

A nebula she could see. A split in the black, a seam in the primordial darkness of oblivion. Purples like majesties - golds and silvers like riches. Young stars burned blue, raring to send their brilliance into the expanse. Others were old, molten hearts settling down for a quiet rest. A cat's eye winked from a dense pocket of ruddy star gas. Intricate spirals of magma, of napalm light, flared their prominence.

Nasira hugged herself, letting her eyes drift shut. It was not long until she felt the thrum of the engines beneath her feet. She opened her eyes and turned to see the spaceport shrinking away. Within seconds, it was small enough to be blotted out by her thumb if she held it out.

It was to be an eight hour journey. No stops. No obstructions, no navigation.

Three hours in, she jolted awake, disoriented. A slice of light narrowed into a sliver and then into black as a door on the far side of the room shut. The security guard stationed there was nowhere to be seen, but it was possible that he'd gone to check on another part of the ship.

Nasira glanced around the dim seating area and unbelted herself from her seat. As she walked through the aisles, the nimod awoke, lifting one bony eyelid. It swiveled in the socket before focusing on her. Nasira hurriedly signed reassurance, and the nimod didn't sit up any further. It didn't close its eye, either, though.

She walked to the door through which Prono had vanished, peeking through at first and then going in. The hallway was lit only by blue lights embedded near the floor, but no overheads. From inside its close quarters, she could feel the atmospheric conditioning working - her toes in her boots hummed.

It was then that she nearly turned around to return to her seat, but then she heard a few deep, booming coughs further down the hallway. Nasira followed the coughing until it could be heard through a door marked for crew usage only.  
She knocked but couldn't hear it over the sounds, now punctuated by retching.

She raised her voice and said, "Are you alright? Let me call the infirmary for you."

There was no response, just more retching.

A crash shuddered out.

"I'm coming in," Nasira announced, tugging the door open. She almost tripped as she entered. Prono had collapsed in front of the door, flipping a desk with him. He was prone now, and she thought maybe he'd recovered, but then his chest and shoulders gave a great jerk, spasming his broad features.

She dropped to her knees, hands fluttering like panicked birds over him. She had no idea what to do. She had experience with emergency medical aid, but not for a seizure-like coughing fit, and not for alien anatomy. Trying to hold him down and pry his clenched jaw open at the same time proved difficult, so his body thrashed and rolled, striking her as she struggled. She jammed the first thing she could find - some kind of office utensil that had fallen to the floor - between his teeth so he couldn't bite her at least, then shoved her hand back into his face. She swabbed his now-slavering mouth with a finger, checking for a lodged object. Nothing.

She abandoned her efforts there and scanned the rest of his body, over his chest, then his abdomen, looking to his legs, and then back up.

Her face was poised seven inches from his chest when she heard a crack like breaking ribs. Something wet and meaty slapped her face, spattering her with moisture. Dumbstruck, she blinked crimson beads from her eyes.

There was a cavity in his chest, a bombshell gone off in his heart. Red muscle, red bone, red tubing that made him up, red everything.

And something squirming within it.

A skeleton, a snake. Some grotesque perversion of both. It uncoiled a thin tail. A low hiss escaped from its bony, parted jaw.

Nasira froze, hyperaware of the dripping gore on her face. A chunk of something slid from her nose and dropped wetly to the floor. The skeleton creature followed it with a jerk of its body, still making that sort of cautionary hiss.

It sprung from the cavity.

Nasira fell backwards, a strangled cry escaping her. The coiled snake skittered across the room, fleeing. Nasira felt around, grabbed something, and launched it after the retreating creature. Her aim was true, but in an instant it had wormed through a low vent and vanished. Her projectile slammed into the grating, rattling it, startling her again so that her arms almost gave out.

For a moment she just sat, lost, fingertips trailing the bloody floor, legs bent on either side of her - looking utterly woebegone despite the multitude of shiny buttons that signified her esteemed rank lined up on her breast.

She wrenched herself away from the curdling insides of the corpse and vomited, heaving until her vision swam.

When she could stop herself, it surprised her to hear the silence of the office, to realize that the universe had continued to expand, that life was still happening even though she'd forgotten how to breathe and how to stand.

Eventually she  _did_  stand, and the first thing after that was to rummage through Prono's pocket to find his ship access card.

 _The next step_ , she thought, tottering on unsteady legs down the same hallway from which she'd come,  _would be to get to the bridge._

She turned the corner and came to an abrupt stop. At the next junction, there was nothing but a smooth expanse of metal wall.

But she had seen movement.

She understood what she'd just been through. She understood that.

But she'd seen it.

She knew.

Some distortion of light, a warp in the air. It was still there. She could  _see_  the air move around it, even though there was no air to move. She was in a tin can in space. There was nothing.

There was something.

But just before she could focus on it, the ship gave a great shudder. And then she was knocked off her feet, colliding with the wall, falling to the floor.

Something had happened.

Something.


	2. Catalyst

Nasira's pulse thumped in her temples. She used the wall to help herself stand. She was no longer thinking about anything other than the ship's malfunction. Everything else had been stunned out of her.

She ran down the hall, hooking around corners haphazardly. In her exhilaration, her instincts blared which turns to take like a road map until she arrived at the wide double doors marked as the bridge. She swiped Prono's access card.

Shouts packed the bridge. She thought she didn't understand the language, but then realized that her ears were full of a muffled ringing like the atmosphere before a storm.

After what felt like forever, someone saw her and shut up. And whoever he was yelling to noticing there was no yell in return, and slowly the room became quiet.

"What," Nasira said, the word clunking into her mouth with considerable delay, "What happened?"

They stared at her. There were three of them, all individuals of the Ghanitkish ethnicity. They were built small with thin foreheads and lipless mouths. A captain, a first officer, and an engineer. The entire flight crew of an elephantine starship.

The captain, a female, and the purplest of them, answered.

"Unplanned thrusters bursts. We're off course."

"By how much?" she asked, shaking herself until she could speak normally.

The three of them exchanged looks.

"About eighty parsecs," said the engineer, a male, and the least-spotted of them.

"Can't you correct it?"

"The ship isn't responding. We're still accelerating, but without control. Every hour we keep this up, we'll be covering hundreds of light years more."

Naira's voice was very quiet. "You can't stop it?"

All three of them lifted their arms in a shrug. "Not at present. We don't have the personnel, and the engine's too hot to work on anyway," the captain said.

Nasira said nothing else. The three of them were still looking at her, looking torn.

"Your face," the first officer said tentatively.

She'd forgotten all about it. Her fingers came away red. "Oh," she said. She wasn't the type to swoon, but something about knowing she'd been slick with it didn't help her balance. "Oh."

"Call the infirmary," the captain said to her first officer.

"No," she interrupted. "It's not mine. But - there's something on the ship, I don't know how it got here."

"A life form?" the captain asked. "Sentient?"

"No. Maybe. It's young, I think. Small. But it's killed...uh, Prono. It killed Prono in an office near the passenger seating."

She shuddered then, her mind going back to its violent debut. She thought maybe that was its birth, or that it had been a parasite evacuating its host. But how had Prono been infected? He'd seemed fine before they'd launched. How long had he been coughing before Nasira awoke?

The crew looked like they'd like to be disbelieving, but their eyes kept going from her uniform to the blood on her face. She wiped another cheek clear of it but had nowhere to clean her hands. It dripped from her fingertips.

"You've never seen this before?" she asked. "You've never seen a small life form," she held out her forearm to demonstrate its size, "burst from a living thing before?"

Fearfully, they shook their heads. And the blood continued to drip, every eye in the room going towards where it marked the floor.

* * *

Nasira unwound her hijab, careful to avoid letting it touch her face. She set it to the side and looked at herself in the mirror.

It was like she was wearing a scarlet mask. Flecks of tissue clung to her eyebrows. She shoved her hands under the water and scrubbed her face furiously, fighting revulsion.

When the water ran clear, she shut it off. She stood gripping the basin for several minutes afterward. Her body quaked. It took her four tries to get her arms back into the sleeves of her jacket, and five additional minutes to button it.

She let the fabric of her hijab snake through her trembling hands. Then she re-wrapped it, sliding pins into place and straightening the beads.

"Keep it together," she admonished herself, and left the bathroom feeling marginally steadier.

She returned to the bridge (the bathroom was connected to it) to find the three crew members murmuring amongst themselves. Nasira cleared her throat to announce her presence.

"I didn't introduce myself," she said, bowing. "I'm Nasira Lathan. I'm an officer in Adrara."

"I'm Uicra," said the captain.

"Ensla," said the first officer.

"Buhbda," said the engineer.

"About the life form," Nasira said, "Do we have any way of finding it?"

"Not if it keeps to itself," Ensla said. "If it starts chewing up wires in the electrical access tunnels, things like that, we'll know. It's tiny, you said. It's probably the least of our problems right now."

Nasira crossed her arms over her chest. The organism had killed Prono, and she had no idea where it had gone. Accelerating into open space would only become an issue if they ran out of supplies. A faster, larger ship could tow the Cavalier back if they managed to get a distress call out.

She voiced this aloud.

Uicra looked uncomfortable. "Immediately after we began off course, we tried to send a transmission to Thouopro. We were unsuccessful. The long-range array has sustained, uh, considerable external damage."

The long-range array was a communications device that could send and receive signals almost half the length of the galaxy. It was a massive device bolted to the hull of the ship.

After speaking, Uicra looked at the engineer for confirmation, who nodded.

"You don't know what caused it?" Nasira asked.

"We've got cameras on it, but as far as we can see, there's no visible damage. It must be in the board. Or the wiring. Or…or anything."

Nasira's eyes shut. Another setback.

"No one knows where we are?" she asked. "Can we fix it?"

"Not from here," Buhba said. He seemed sure. "We'd need to fix it manually. And we don't have the personnel trained for it."

"You'd know how to fix it if you did have the personnel?"

"I could build this ship over again with the right equipment and enough time." His small chest swelled with pride despite their situation.

"Good," she said. "Do you have a personal radio? I'll fix it for you if you talk me through it."

All the air puffed out of him again. "But that would require…" He trailed off.

"A space walk," she said. "Yes."

* * *

Nasira's suit pressurized with a high-pitched squeal. Her breath fogged the mask for only a moment before the helmets' filters adjusted.

The ship's engineer, Buhbda, said, "Can you hear me?"

Nasira gave an affirmation and hooked her bag to the loop at her waist. It would float behind her, out of the way, until she needed it. Then she could just pull it to her. Nice and neat, with no need to chase down any wrenches in space.

"Are you sure you're qualified for a space walk?"

"I'm sim-certified," she said. She went into the airlock and knelt. The door behind her shut and re-pressurized.

"Start the countdown, please," she said, a note of finality in her voice.

Buhbda began counting down, his reedy voice the only sensation she was aware of. He reached zero, dropping the levels in the airlock.

There was no explosive decompression as the outer door opened, swelling her lungs, or sucking her into the oblivion of space, so she opened her eyes. The exit was about ten feet in diameter. Taking a deep breath, she drifted out into the abyss.

Though they were still accelerating, she was not scraped away from the body of the Cavalier. The force of its passage created a weak field that carried her with it without strain on her body. As long as she stayed within it, she would travel at the same rate.

Even hanging onto the safety bar just outside the door, it was easy to forget she wasn't floating alone in the middle of space. Even considering the distance they'd covered, the nebula was so massive that it remained above her, an eye in the sky. Below her, thin trails of stardust like an afterthought. She was in the sky, the sky was beneath her, it was above her. The disorienting nature of it was far more extreme than she'd expected. She could have turned herself around on the way out of the door and had no way of knowing. She could be upside down but with no ground and no gravity, there was no such thing.

She thumbed the control in her suit. A tether shot from Nasira's waist and curved over the side of the ship. The display indicator turned green, which meant it had attached itself to something viable. She let it reel her in, skimming the metal hull.

She stood on a level part of the ship and looked around. The ship was so massive - three miles long, at least - that it acted as her artificial horizon, with grey below and night above. Above her still was another rounded protuberance, as steep as a cliff. She fought visions of what she'd seen on Uataislurn - allowing her mind to linger on them seemed like thinking the room full of monsters, after the light was off and before one went to sleep.

"Seventy degrees to your right," Buhbda said over her comm. "Oh, over."

Nasira fired her other tether at the wall, letting it reel her in as the other slackened. When she got to the new point, she released her current tether, and she fired it further up. She was never without at least one tether acting as a safety line, but even still, her connection to the ship felt tenuous.

She climbed the wall like a mountain, pedaling her feet along the metal to help the tether reel in faster. When she arrived at the top, she looked out over the ship. She was at its highest point now, and there was the array. An enormous plate supported by a crossbar rigging; the panels were sleek and reflected the nebula. It didn't look damaged. She hopped to it, firing tethers alternately until she was near.

"Do you have eyes on?" she said.

"Ye - I mean, affirmative. Go ahead. Um, over."

She went to it - even closer it looked unharmed. She was not a few feet away from it when she collided with something so hard she bounced backward and up. Panicked, she lashed out her limbs to find something to steady herself with, but of course there was nothing. She'd worked herself into a spin. The hull of the ship was almost thirty feet away when she flipped around to see it -

"Buhbda!"

Her failsafe tethers activated, launching out towards the nearest detected surface. They pulled taut and yanked her to a stop. Her panicked breaths cottoned the air in her suit.

"Thank you," she said shakily, once she'd recovered.

"No problem," he replied, equally as rattled.

He began reeling her in. But the tethers weren't attached to anything. She could see where they stopped, her perceived depth and the indicator in her suit showing that they were hovering some ten feet from the ship's surface.

Her feet touched something. Keeping her tethers attached to whatever they were attached to - she squatted down. Her hand had nothing visible beneath it, and yet she could feel a hard surface. Below her, she could not see the array, even though she knew she was above where it had been. She should be standing atop the plate.

Cautiously, she spoke up. "You see this, right?"

"I see it. Hold on, I'm…I'm trying to figure it out."

"It looks like some kind of cloaking technology. Or it could be camouflage - I can't see the array through it from where I am, but I could earlier." When she'd seen it before, she'd seen the black backdrop between the bars of the rigging. Now, above it, she could see only unmarked grey hull.

"Wait. Wait, I'm working on —"

He was cut off by a rush of static. Crackling, hissing, squealing static. Not static at all, she realized too late. She heard shouting, she heard screaming turn their connection to white noise. And then, quite suddenly in its place, there was nothing.

And space seized its credit as being the quietest place in existence.

She spoke tentatively into the vacuum. "Buhbda?"

There was nothing. 

Nasira leapt from the invisible structure, unsure where it ended, but tethering onto the hull and pulling herself down. She jumped from the next edge, reeling in so fast she hit the surface and her legs crumpled. Unharmed, she stood again. When she got to the final edge, the final curve, she fell until she was level with the airlock. She pulled herself in, releasing both tethers. Flying to the control panel, forcing the airlock door to shut. Waiting as long as she could stand to make the airlock safe, then she opened the inner doors.

She was already popping her helmet off and casting it to the side when she left. As she ran, she undid the fastenings on the suit until it sloughed off. She kicked it away without stopping.

The airlock was about a fourth of a mile away from the bridge, up five flights of stairs. She flew up the cold metal in bare feet.

The door to the bridge was open. She pressed herself against the wall outside and peered in. The control counters were unmanned. The blast cover was retracted, the window showing space beyond. It was fully lit and in complete order, as if the three of them had simply walked out. No pooling blood, no skeletal snake creatures. She was still wary of her feet when she entered.

She circled a counter, peering around to see if one of the three had taken refuge. She stubbed her toe against something. It skidded a few inches. On the floor was a metal grate, its original placement suggesting it had fallen from the duct above.

A stone dropped into Nasira's stomach. Deep gouges marked the duct's frame. She forced her feet to move, to carry her beneath it. She took a deep breath and craned her neck to look up.

The passage was about two feet and a half feet wide. It traveled upwards into darkness. A foreboding chill swept through her.

That creature...

Had it gotten to all three of them? There was no blood, there were no bodies. How had something so small done this? How had it left those marks?

The universe was a place off boundless possibility, but at present, her shock-addled mind could think of only one conclusion.

It had grown.

To a size large enough to carry three ninety pound life forms vertically up an air shaft.

In four hours.

Nasira covered her face with her hands, squeezing her brain to cooperate, fearing it would splinter into fragments. She had to do something. That was four deaths in four hours. This thing, whatever it was, was capable of navigating the ship, at least wherever the air ducts ran.

She grabbed her jacket off of the back of a chair and put it on. She turned in circles, looking around and around for something to do next. She pressed her fingertips to the beads on her hijab and tried to think. Her eyes kept drifting up to the vent, a portal through which a murderer had trespassed. She kept an eye on it even though if something did appear, there may be little she could do.

She backed up in the direction of the bridge's lavatory and bumped the lockers. The rattle startled her as her head struck them. She stepped away from them, pressing her hands over her mouth, praying that nothing had heard. For all she knew, it was nestled in the junction of the vents above.

She counted to sixty before dropping her hands. An idea struck her, and opened the first locker. Nothing. The next: a small pair of boots. She'd left her own neatly beneath the suits in the airlock bay. She leaned against the lockers and tugged them on, keeping her eyes on the vent the entire time. They fit well, and she wondered which of the three crew members they'd belonged to.

She directed her thoughts towards figuring out what she could do from here. There were no weapons of any kind. She'd opened and shut every one of them. It was likely that Prono had carried the only weapons on the entire ship, and even then, no one had expected any sort of trouble. Countless smooth flights had made them complacent. It took a disaster, a catalyst, to lead the charge. Maybe if word ever got out about the four deaths on the Cavalier, there'd be extra security aboard most flights. But for the ship, all the lives onboard now, there was no difference.

Catalysts may speed reactions, but they also hung - unchanged - in the balance, while the world around them burned.


	3. Hatamah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hatamah: found in Quran 104:4  
> noun  
> Hell; "That which Breaks to Pieces"

Nasira let the bite of her nails bring her back to lucidity. She couldn't believe she could stand upright in the middle of the bridge knowing what had happened. There was no sign of the creature, so maybe that meant it had moved on.

Why had it targeted the bridge in the first place? It was quite a distance from its initial entrance into the ventilation. Did the thing have some sort of intelligence? Was it systematically crippling key points in the ship?

Had it had something to do with the thruster bursts?

Or maybe it was just an animal, hunting. It had gone for the weakest part of the ship, occupied by only three people. It had grown, but did it consider the crowd of people in the fuselage a threat? Would it aim next for the least populated area?

She wanted to believe that was the case. Which meant that she now had a priority.

* * *

The infirmary was on the starboard side of the ship, an area into which she had not yet ventured.

She searched the bridge once again, looking for a way she could contact them via intercom. Nothing immediately made itself clear. Deciding that she was wasting time, she set off.

She didn't run. It would only draw attention to her, and it was possible the thing had retreated to whatever habitation it had made so that it could...

Her vision blurred as she shook her head, fighting to stave off that line of thought.

As she made her way down, she realized that there were only three ways to get to the bridge. That meant that in the ceilings of one lay the creature's passage. She kept an eye on the grates above as she passed them, feeling a chill on the back of her neck when she was beneath.

At the elevator bay, she pressed the call button. When the doors open, she fell into them, then jammed her thumb into the one labeled for the infirmary.

They opened into an empty room shaped like a "T". Except for the fluttering of a curtain blocking a perpendicular junction, there was no movement.

Not here. Not already.

Something pricked her ears as if from far away. She turned to see what it was, her gaze going up the wall, up the elevator doors, to the lit indicator at the top of them. The elevator had made a dinging sound as the doors opened.

The ping of the floor indicator cleared her ears, making way just in time for her to hear sound of a heavy footfall further in the room.

Immediately, she dropped to her belly and rolled beneath the first gurney. It was meant to carry the largest of potential passengers, so she was able to make herself invisible in the depths of its shadows.

An instant later an enormous thing thundered past, coming to a halt in front of the doors.

It was mere inches away from the edge of the gurney. It stood with its weight on its toes, heels going up into legs recurved and thick with muscles. Spittle slapped the ground in quantities she could not believe.

This was it. It was no longer the pale ivory of bone, nor was it sheathed like a dagger in blood. It was nightmare black, so much so that in its reflection she could see that her pupils had dilated in fear.

Loosed from its abyssal mouth came the same hiss as from infancy. A searching sound. It was not content with the elevators having made the noise on their own.

It was enormous. She estimated by the proportions of its legs that it was nine feet tall. If it caught her, there'd be nothing for her to do. She'd be dead in an instant. Dead in a fucking nanosecond.

She was not in an infirmary anymore. She was in Jahannam. She'd fallen into chasms deeper than death, into fires blacker than pitch. This was the domain of Iblis, and he stood before her, slavering from his insatiable maw and wielding iron hooks with which to drag her into eternity.

She looked away from it, knowing it wouldn't make any difference if she saw it strike. It would sense her there. She did not want to see its face duck low to look underneath the gurney and see her as it had seen her at the moment of its birth. She did not think it would be happy to meet her again.

Swimming in the shade of the gurney opposite her were blinking black eyes. Someone else had the same idea as her - to duck beneath something and pray.

Hardly daring to move, she shaped her fingers into the sign for "okay." In response, they stopped blinking in their terrified way.

Nasira put both fingers to each side of her lips, signing "Friends?"

One tiny clawed hand pointed at the curtain.

Nasira signed, "Wait."

They nodded feverishly, eyes glinting.

The creature took a few steps back into the room. The weight of its feet was enormous, but Nasira suspected it could just as easily turn to stealth.

It knelt at the end of a row of gurneys, lowering its skeletal visage close to the sheets. The skull was oblong and reflected the overhead lights. It was not a smooth carapace as she had suspected, but rather as though it was made of many obsidian plates layered and ridged together.

Rather like, she thought, the rocky texture of Prono's species.

It gripped the leg of the gurney with a bony hand.

As though it were made of paper, it flipped the gurney, sending the metal pieces crashing to the ground.

Nasira froze. Across the way, her companion covered their eyes.

Nasira's mind raced. In ten seconds, the thing would be at the gurney protecting her companion. Her eyes darted around the room. The elevator would take too long to open and shut.

The creature grabbed another gurney and flipped it. As its arm went up, Nasira saw the rest of the infirmary behind it. Examination tables. Cupboards. Counter tops.

In the center of a wall of surgical instruments hung her salvation.

A rotary saw.

Nasira felt tremors go through her.

She scrambled sideways toward the elevator. She punched the button and turned to face the monstrosity.

Its face jerked up to stare at her. It had no eyes, but she knew for sure that its gaze was burning into her.

Behind her, the elevator doors opened, dinging.

The creature charged her, shrieking, claws extended. Nasira dove out of the way, letting it slam into the wall of the elevator so hard she thought it would judder lose on its track. She leapt the overturned gurneys and sprinted thirty feet across the room.

Planting her foot on the cupboard, she strained at the saw, yanking it off the wall. She flicked the power on and turned just in time to sweep her arms over herself. The saw cut a deep gouge in the thing's skull as it was poised to cut her to ribbons. Yellow blood burst from it and spattered the cupboards. Smoke rose from the impact points.

It wheeled back, screeching in pain. She advanced on it, her body hacking away on autopilot. It tried to block her with its hands, but she dropped to her knee and thrust up inside its guard, splitting its ribcage.

Blood again spattered the ground at its feet.

It spun away and retreated, barbed tail whipping about. She fell backwards to avoid it.

She heard it clamor back into the vents. The sounds of its progression through the ceiling receded as it moved further towards the starboard side of the ship.

A few feet away, the rotary saw was spitting sparks as it ground itself into the floor. Nasira crawled to it, careful to avoid the blade, and shut it off.

As it slowed to a stop, she saw that the blade had melted, leaving it just a heap of deformed metal. And past it, the floor had been dissolved where the creature's blood had spilled.

She peered forward and saw that it had eaten a hole through that level. Below, it was still sizzling. The cupboards and counter tops were similarly marked.

Acid. The creature's blood was acid. Would it neutralize before it could get to the hull? The outer casing of the ship itself was almost fifteen feet thick, made of an alloy that was supposed to be resistant to corrosive materials.

The curtain that covered the branching part of the infirmary was no longer moving. Nasira felt icy in realizing that of course it hadn't been a wind disturbing it earlier.

Standing, her vision pitched forward, almost making her lose her balance. She stumbled against a counter top and recovered.

Past the curtain, this part of the infirmary was completely filled with hospital beds of varying sizes. Their curtains were shut, but there were no occupants.

Further up, she saw the vent grate tangled in one set of curtains. The beds were shoved aside to make room for the creature. As with the bridge, there was no blood.

She grabbed a bed to keep herself steady.

Movement behind her. She whipped around to see her companion, a Jafgar. They were a timid, mousy species. This one had tawny fur covering its features, and a bald tail curling around its toes. It was a she, recognizable by the speckled fur on the sides of her face.

She said, "Underneath." Then she crouched, so Nasira imitated her.

Six hospital beds. Six people huddled beneath them. All unharmed.

Nasira felt relief threatening to spill over.

"You can come out," she said. The right words left her easily now that she knew there was something she could do. "I'm here. I'm from Adrara. I'll help you."

It was a miracle that the entire infirmary staffing had sought refuge and avoided the creature without any warning.

Nasira helped the person nearest her get out from their hiding place.

"You're from a rescue team?" one asked. All the infirmary staff were Jafgars, with the same furry faces and white tails. "Can you correct our course?"

"No," Nasira said, going to help another. "I'm a passenger."

The entire group seemed to deflate.

"It's alright though. We're going to figure this out. Just not here."

"What is it?" another asked.

"I don't know," Nasira said. "But it doesn't attack groups. Big groups, I mean. So we're going to go to the fuselage."

"What about the central bunker?" The Jafgar that had been hiding near the elevator piped up.

"What's your name?" Nasira asked her.

"Remie."

"Okay. We've got a central bunker?"

"Yes. It's near the fuselage. It's an emergency bunker. It's got its own life support and supplies."

"Its own ventilation network, then?" Nasira asked.

"Yes, of course. Its access points are sealed in the event of airborne toxins or decompression."

"Sealed how?"

"A series of metal bulkheads. Impenetrable," Remie said matter-of-factly.

Nasira liked that.

"Good," she said. "Then, after we round everyone up, that's where we're going."

* * *

She led them through the halls down to the fuselage. She kept her eyes on the ceiling and told those bringing up the rear to do the same. Upon closer inspection to the ceiling in the infirmary, Nasira had discovered that flecks of acid blood had eaten through the metal. She didn't know exactly how injured the creature was, but she thought it better to be safe. The rotary saw she'd used was meant for heavy duty amputations, and it had been reduced to uselessness after a few blows.

When they arrived at the doors to the fuselage, Nasira peeked in first. She could see the slumbering forms of passengers still in their seats.

She beckoned the others in, checking the hallway over once more. Now that they were at their destination - that she had a plan - everywhere else in the ship seemed flickering, as if the life had receded in its veins to follow the people instead. She was perfectly willing to leave it to die while she herded passengers to the safety of the central bunker.

"Remie," she said, pulling her aside. "You know what happened on the bridge."

Remie nodded. "I heard on our intercom. They were telling me about Prono while Buhbda was talking to someone going up to the forwarding array."

"There's no one else on the ship?"

"No one. Crew of eleven. Three of us in the infirmary were supposed to be covering steward duties."

"Good. Would you please conduct a persons count for me?"

"It'd be my pleasure."

Remie moved away, her tail swaying behind her. Nasira watched as she helped to rouse passengers, speaking kindly to their bleary selves to avoid panic.

Nasira fingers tapped at her thighs. In a few minutes, every life form on the ship would be marching to safety. The hostile creature, the uninvited passenger, the alien, was injured and retreating.

And meanwhile, the Cavalier would be accelerating, getting further and further from rescue with every second.


	4. Onset

The infirmary staff formed the passengers into a clumpy line of varying heights, builds, species. All very confused, tired, frightened. All entirely mortal, Nasira couldn't help but to remind herself. She had to get this done quickly.

Remie came back to Nasira.

"Including the both of us, there are thirty people."

"Thank you," she said, bowing low. Remie mirrored her.

Nasira said, "Keep everyone here, keep an eye out for trouble. I need to go do something. Wait five minutes, then take everyone to the central bunker."

"Do you want us to close the bulkheads after us?" Remie asked. As Remie's enormous black eyes blinked up at her, Nasira found her gaze wandering away.

Behind her, the nimods' stilt-like legs set it above the rest of the crowd. Its body, shiny and bronze, was thin already, but then the rounded shells clinging to its midsection moved, extending outwards to reveal the small, angled forms of infants.

The nimod was a mother with young that were carried with her, too young to move on their own. Her offspring's tiny pinchers yawned wide, seeking reassurance.

Nasira looked back at Remie. "Yes. Close them."

* * *

Nasira ducked through a side door just as she had done hours ago, before a killer stalked the halls. Preparing to look upon the scene again did not take as long as it should have - she had no time to waste on herself.

She stepped over Prono's corpse and made her way further into the office until she got to a section labeled with Prono's name. It was not engraved, just stuck there with a small note, for he wasn't the regular head of security. This office belonged to someone else, someone who probably would have boarded on Thouopro, someone who had infinitely more luck than the thirty five souls who'd become hunting game for a monster in deep space.

She went into the office and immediately spotted the small safe on the desk. She circled around to look at it but stopped short.

Overturned in the corner was a sleek canister, the one that Marcus had been carrying under his arm. The one Nasira had insisted to Marcus that Prono search.

Inside, some sort of viscous fluid coated the walls. She tweezed some out on her fingertips and studied it. It was pale and tinged with green. It had started to get crusty and dry in places. She wiped it off of her glove as best she could, then rolled the canister back upright.

Behind it was a small creature, grey with the touch of hours-old death. It had eight long fingers, and two bulbous lobes above a tail sectioned like a brain stem. The underside was fleshy, layered like the petals of some rotten flower.

Nasira wrinkled her nose and turned it over. So this was what Marcus has been carrying onto the ship. She debated trying to find the work order he'd spoken of, but then decided that even though she couldn't recognize all the trillions of lesser species, this was likely a creature unauthorized for trafficking.

She spotted something that the body's placement had hidden - a pockmark in the floor, about the size of her thumbnail. The edges were blackened and uneven. Immediately, she recognized it as the work of the alien's acid blood.

Her fingers went up to her rank. She unfastened it and exposed the pin, then jabbed it into the folds of the thing's flesh. Pulling it out again, she inspected the point. Yellow blood dripped from it, but it did not eat at the metal. She tried again in various parts of its anatomy, concluding that some time after its death the blood had neutralized.

Grimacing, she shoved the thing back into its canister. Then she went to the safe on the desk. The three dials were already resting on specific symbols, but it did not open. She slid the last one up one more slot and the safe clicked to accommodate her.

Bemused, she reached in and pulled out a weapon. It was almost identical to a handgun in size and function. She dragged its holster out after and fastened it to her waist.

She replaced her rank on her shoulder before setting out again, more confident now that she had something long-range she could use to oppose the alien.

When Nasira had arrived at the bridge, they'd told her that they were eighty parsecs off course. A parsec was about three light years. That meant they had traveled 260 light years, 26 for every minute. In the six hours since, they had traveled 9,540 light years. And that was not including their rate of acceleration, which she did not know.

They'd probably been declared missing only an hour ago, for it had been was now the ninth hour of their intended eight hour flight. Unless someone had tried to contact them and found the connection severed, it was not likely that a rescue team had even been mobilized.

The fact remained that they couldn't count on outside help if they didn't ask for it.

* * *

She had to rip an emergency instructions manual off the wall, leaving a square patch of discoloration behind. No one had need for emergency protocol in what seemed like a long time.

The lifeboats were in their own separate bay on the port side of the ship. She marked the route on her map, then tucked the canister beneath her free arm. Walking the opposite direction as the one taken by the alien was no small relief.

She moved quickly, trusting that she'd put the alien out of commission for a good few hours. She had to go through a habitation level to get to her destination, and she peered down into an empty swimming lake lined with exotic plants. Shaking her head, she hurried on.

The bay was its own branch of hallways. Each octagonal door was like a bank vault, and led to its own lifeboat. The 'boats themselves were shuttles - smaller than the one they'd taken up to the spaceport - but there were only seven of them, and they weren't meant to transport passengers for long periods of time. Nasira had considered forsaking the ship, loading all the passengers into lifeboats instead. But the promise of security in the central bunker was much lower risk than trying to sort out an evacuation procedure. Right now, she was the only one on the entire ship in any danger at all.

She went to the first lifeboat's door and swiped Prono's access card.

Upon stepping in, she felt a telltale disturbance in the air. Apprehension pricked the flesh between her shoulder blades.

She set the canister down on a control console and put a hand on her newly acquired weapon, sweeping her analytical gaze over the room. The interior was two levels - one that housed the pilot's chair, and a loft that held passenger seating. The foamy insulation was ridged and grey, making the walls look darker than they should have been. The shuttle's blast shield was extended, so the only light in the room was that of the backup lights flickering on the consoles and near the seats.

Nasira sidestepped and reached into a depression in the wall. The lights flicked on. She tread carefully, looking up into the shadows of the loft.

Whatever was in the room had already heard the door open as she entered, so she called out, "I'm an officer of Adrara. Come out now."

The air buzzed. She could feel something listening.

"If you don't show yourself, I will arrest you for impeding my objective to secure this craft."

"I'm here," said a faint voice, in English.

"Are you alone?"

"No. He's up here with me."

"Come down."

Marcus' son crept backwards over the edge of the loft and then descended with the ladder. Marcus followed him, looking around suspiciously. He spotted the canister on the table and paled.

"It's dead, sir," Nasira said.

She saw him struggle to compose his expression. "Oh, good."

"I'm very sorry about its state. Weren't you worried about the canister's security earlier?" Nasira stepped closer to him, taking in his sweaty forehead and mottled jawline. His adams apple was bobbing up and down as he swallowed. "Was that only because you were aware that you brought a monster onto this ship, and you know what it's capable of? Is that why you fled to the lifeboats?"

He didn't say anything.

"That's not why you've hidden yourself inside, though. The only reason you haven't left yet is because," she held up Prono's access card, "you don't have the authorization. How long have you been arguing with the computer to let you go? Don't argue with me," she said as he opened his mouth to retort. "There's no other reason you could be in here except to wait out the disaster, and hope that you'd be able to recover your specimen when we arrived at Thouopro."

His mouth went from a sneer to a flat line as she accused him. He eyed her weapon, still holstered on her waist.

"We're not going to Thouopro, are we?" he asked. "We're an hour overdue."

"The only reason I haven't come with a posse of officers to arrest you." She beckoned him into one of the lifeboats' seats. His son made to sit on the opposite side, but Nasira said, "Stay where I can see you."

He move to sit next to Marcus.

Nasira leaned forward. "Your specimen. Is it a parasite?"

He looked defiant to answer her question.

"It must have infected Prono when he inspected it," she continued.

"I had every right to be transporting that organism. It was labeled as dangerous, but I was told to not let it out of my sight. If that guard wasn't careful about opening the canister, that isn't my fault." He looked around at the pair of them, daring them to oppose him. His son gazed at him, blank, then went back to staring at the floor.

"You must have known that it would get loose, hence why you took refuge here. Why not tell anyone?"

"Where is it now?" he said.

"You know it. Where do you think it'd be?"

He said, "Where is its prey?"

"Safe."

He raised an eyebrow, a bizarre thing to see in a situation so dire.

"Right," he said.

"You don't think they're safe?"

"It's an organism of extreme...opportunity."

"Then it's logical that you were trying to smuggle it over interplanetary borders," she said, raising her own brow. "And why you're hiding from it yourself."

He shook his head, looking away into the darkened corners of the lifeboat.

She stood.

"Get up."

"What?" he said. The son looked at him, then at Nasira, then stood without any of his father's hesitation.

"I said get up. Vacate the lifeboat."

"But the creature -"

"I killed it. Get up."

Marcus stood. Nasira shunted them both into the hallway and said, "Wait right here in front of this window where I can see you."

They did as she said and she returned to the lifeboat, sitting in the pilot's seat. She looked over her shoulder to make sure they hadn't moved, then booted up the computer.

She canceled Marcus' efforts to force the lifeboat into launch mode.

The lifeboat would go a mere fraction of the speed of the Cavalier - only about ten light years a minute (six hundred an hour) to the Cavalier's twenty-six. If the Cavalier was about six hours off course, it'd take the life boat twenty hours to get to their initial route, and an additional thirteen to reach Thouopro. It was slow, but it was better than nothing.

She quickly logged the events of their voyage, including the death of the four crew members. She described that they had no means of stopping or controlling the ship.

That there was a hostile organism onboard.

That it was the property of one - she checked the label on the canister - Marcus J. Rums.

And that she had no way of administering an evacuation for the remaining thirty two persons onboard.

Then she hovered over the end of the message, debating. She keyed in an estimation of their projected flight path, hoping that it was accurate enough for rescue to find them.

She signed it:

Nasira Lathan, Command Sergeant

And then she imagined her message reaching the desk of her commanding council at Adrara, and what they would expect her to do now.

* * *

Nasira stared at the canister. Smooth, unassuming. The seal was tight. It could have been carrying anything. She imagined Prono sitting at his desk, prying the lid back to inspect the contents.

In the end, she strapped the canister into a seat and added a post script to her message: Life form contents deceased. Handle with caution. Pathogen may be present.

She stepped out of the life boat and then used the wall mounted console to seal the doors and then jettison it. She watched as it drifted from the Cavalier, then streaked away to carry their plea through the stars.

"Now," Nasira said, ignoring Marcus' look of outrage, "what can you tell me about this creature you've so foolishly unleashed into our midst?"

He looked out the window, space now where there used to be the interior of the lifeboat. "Couldn't you have sent something with it? Why do we have to stay trapped here?"

"If there was anyone I could have saved by sending them along," Nasira said, "my very last choice would have been you. You've a responsibility to help me find your specimen."

"I thought you said you'd killed it."

"If you believed that, you wouldn't be so nervous right now." Her voice was flat and hard. "Are you alright, sir? The infirmary staff is in the central bunker. I could request they look you over."

His son's eyes darted up to meet Nasira's and focus on her for the first time. They were a pale, dishwater grey. Nasira noticed now that he was younger than he'd initially appeared - not older than her after all, perhaps in his mid-to-late-teens.

And then he spoke with all the force of a breaking dam.

"He did it on purpose!" His face shone with this withheld information. Marcus whipped around and drove a fist into his son's nose, knocking him back.

Nasira pulled him off of his son, seizing his arm and twisting, forcing him to submit with her elbow on his back. He struggled briefly before giving up, hurting himself worse in his attempts.

"What do you mean?" she asked the son. He pinched a bloody noise and slurred his words.

"He dib ib on purpose becub he dibn't wand anyone do be able do dell aboud ohtieslerb." Most of the meaning was lost on Nasira, but any fragments she'd been able to mentally construct were shattered as Marcus screamed, "SHUT UP EDMUND!"

"Stop it!" Nasira roared at him, putting pressure on his fingers, causing him to shout in pain. Her mind reeled. To Marcus, she said, very quietly, "You did this on purpose?"

She spun him back upright, advancing on him still so that they were chest to chest. She was tall, as tall as he was, and he flinched away. The wall at his back stopped him.

"You have no right to judge me," he said. Now without an escape and as she bore down on him, he took on a cutting tone.

"You smuggled a dangerous organism onto a passenger vessel!" she snarled, seizing a fistful of his lapels. She jerked him close enough to see the dirt in his pores. "You've jeopardized every life on this ship. Your son's. Your own." She laid the back of her hand on the meaty part of his neck, feeling her lips skin back from her teeth. She fully intended to press, to twist, to tear, to snap. To walk back to the central bunker with his blood on her hands and in Yutovian - her best chance of being understood as deathly remorseful - to confess there was nothing she could do to save them.

Instead, she pushed his face away, letting his head smack into the metal wall, not even hard enough to hurt.

"You will answer for this," she said, her voice ringing in her ears. "I swear you will. I'll walk you to judgment myself."

Something pricked her peripheral vision and, as if in response to her testament, an immense humanoid form materialized at the end of the hallway, some forty feet away. It had a gladiators' physique and wielded in both massive hands a sleek spear.

Nasira instantly forgot her ire and shoved the two men behind her and backed up, forcing them into the tiny depression of the window, shielding them with her body.

The humanoid spun its weapon, heavy booted feet walking towards them at a pace of near-leisure.

Nasira held her arms straight, splaying her fingers - commanding it to back off. Adrara never pulled any sort of weapon on an intelligent life form unless it was blatantly aggressive, but the proof that she was able to do so was still clear in her holster. This one was self-aware, by the way it handled its weapon. Even if it was a species she'd never seen nor heard of.

"Hey," she shouted in Yutovian. "Stop!"

The humanoid kept coming, its broad shoulders seeming to fill up the hallway. Metal encased its left arm up to the bicep.

She tried again in Aplindan. And again in Qwertho. She signed. She ran through a list of every language she knew, even her human languages, English, Arabic, Korean.

She did everything she could think of short of wielding her weapon. Her shoulder blades jut into the chests of those she protected as she pressed backwards, trying to gain even tiny centimeters of distance from the threat.

And still it advanced.


	5. At Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gendarmes: french
> 
> gens d'armes - men at arms

Nasira held both hands out as a warning, as if she could stop the humanoid's progression. Her holster burned at her waist. She could shoot, and she could shoot well. But no agent of Adrara had ever discharged lethal ammunition at a life form for as long as Nasira had been alive.

It kept coming, the hilt of its weapon spinning so fast it was near invisible.

"Don't come any closer!" she heard herself maintaining. She knew she was losing control. She let it get even nearer to them, resisting the allure of her weapon.

The spear streaked to a stop, held across the humanoid's body. It bent its knees, throwing its arms wide. A bestial roar came forth from its mask. A clear challenge.

Resolve cracked like a whip in her mind, fueling her limbs to charge towards it. Nasira's body curved to avoid the spear's thrust straight towards her - she pivoted and her leg snapped up. A lifetime of elite physical training paid off - her foot struck the spear's shaft, knocking it from the humanoid's grasp. She held out her hands, completely at ease, ready to catch it.

The humanoid's leg swung and crashed into her ribs, sending her flying against the wall, then it effortlessly plucked the spear from the air.

The sun and stars flared in her vision. Head spinning, she peeled herself from the floor in time to tackle Edmund out from under the attackers next jab with the spear.

She lived a brief moment in which there was nothing but his stunned, battered expression before she rolled off of him and thrust her legs out, pummeling the enemy's kneecaps.

It bellowed and stomped down on her, but she threw herself sideways and jackknifed to her feet, retreating several steps.

Nasira grimaced. Just one hit from this thing had her clinging to her screaming ribs and struggling to remain upright.

They were all doomed if she didn't do something.

"Run," she said over her shoulder. She spoke in English, hoping that the humanoid couldn't understand. "Get to the central bunker and make them let you in."

Marcus sped off, but Edmund hesitated until Nasira urged him again. She'd have to trust that Marcus wouldn't loop around to return to the lifeboats.

Nasira turned her attention back to the attacker.

It hefted its spear to shoulder level.

Crying out, Nasira ran at it. She shielded her face with her arms, dropping to her knees and sliding beneath its legs. The spear came down upon her - she ducked to avoid the deadly point and then seized the shaft, redirecting it, driving its force onto a new target. It punched straight through her attacker's foot, skewering it. An immense bellow rent the air. Electricity crackled and the smell of burnt flesh assailed her. She scampered out from underneath and kept going, her way now clear.

With a howl, the thing unstuck itself from its spear and whirled. Nasira sprinted away, skidding around the corner, but something forced her to stop in her tracks. The spear tip was embedded in the wall, pinning the fabric of her coat to it. She grabbed the spear and pried it loose. Bright green blood coated the end. In her grasp, it collapsed to a much smaller size. She squeezed it, trying to get it to extend again, but it was unresponsive.

Twenty feet away, the thing was recovering enough to take a limping step towards her.

She tucked the spear into her jacket and ran.

* * *

Roars chased her down the narrow hallways. It was a considerable amount of time before she realized they were mere echoes, first against the metal, and then against the furthest reaches of her panicked mind.

She was about to slow to a stop when she saw in front of her Marcus and Edmund crouched behind a low wall, hiding.

"What are you doing?" Nasira said. "What are you doing? Go!"

She forced them in front of her, dictating turns, sneaking looks over her shoulder as though the thing would be right on their heels. They reached the habitation level she had passed through on her way to the lifeboats.

Something at the far edge of the drained lake caught her attention - someone was standing there. She grabbed the men's collars and forced them down, ducking in the cover of the foliage at the bottom of the lake. She shushed them, then peered through the leaves and spotted two forms standing on the far side.

There were two of them, very similar to the one they'd encountered by the lifeboats. Hair-like appendages, long and black, hung down their backs. On the left side of each shoulder plate was a mounted object that swiveled back and forth.

Nasira pressed herself lower, pushing the two into the dirt, trying to become invisible. The thing on its shoulder stopped, fixed itself on them. A blue orb spun in the mouth of what was clearly a weapon.

"Move!" she ordered. Nasira dragged the both of them up and shoved them out of the way. An instant later, the blast hit the air between them, expanding outwards and launching her back. She hit the slope of the lake, coughed dirt, and, crouching low, ran back to the two. She got to Edmund first, gasping and clutching a charred pant leg. The skin beneath was an angry red, but it seemed a small price to pay for his life.

She glanced through the foliage again and saw that the two forms were crouched low, searching, but they hadn't moved from where they'd been situated earlier.

"Edmund," she whispered, while Marcus boosted himself onto his elbow some distance away. "Do you know anything? You need to tell me if you know something."

His eyes were wide and afraid, cracked blood staining his lips.

"Dey're hunters," he said. His voice was easier to understand now that the blood wasn't flowing as freely from his nose. "Thad's all I know."

"Hunters," she repeated.

She dared to look towards the exit the three of them would have taken. It was a hundred feet away. She kneaded the lake bed, letting the dirt grind into her fingernails.

She said, "I want you to run for that apartment over there." She glanced at one of the living quarters across from the lake. It was only half the distance as the one across the room. "And then out the back door. Can you get to the fuselage from there?"

Marcus crawled to them. He looked mildly inconvenienced, nothing more. Nasira pushed disdain aside. She put a hand on Edmund's shoulder.

"Okay?" she asked, shaking him.

He nodded.

"When I'm up," she said.

Again, he nodded.

She took the spear from her jacket. She shut her eyes and then broke left, clawing her way up the slope of the lake. She felt the heat of her enemy's eyes on her as she ran, and, distantly, the sounds of Edmund and Marcus running for shelter the opposite direction. She chanced a look behind her and saw that the two humanoids had followed her. But further, the one with the metal arm had entered the habitation area, and it was in pursuit of Marcus and Edmund.

Veering around, she outpaced the red beads of the shoulder cannons as they tracked her. Explosions, smaller than the first, but still powerful enough to nearly lift her off her feet, punctuated the air behind her. Marcus shouted, and Edmund slammed the door on their pursuer.

Nasira swung the spear wide. It extended with her motion, but the shaft smacked into the hunter's metal arm as it moved inside her attack. It batted the spear away and snatched her by the neck, lifting. It was so tall that her toes immediately cleared the floor. She thrashed, scratching its unprotected wrist and kicking its middle, but it was not phased. Its grip constricted on her throat, not choking her, but crushing, as if it was intent on grasping her spine in its fist. Black spots like locusts buzzed about her periphery.

Her hand went to her weapon's holster. She pressed the end of the weapon to its abdomen, but before she could squeeze the trigger, the hunter wrenched it away, discarding it to the side. It was five feet away. Maybe ten. It didn't matter how far it was, as it was so utterly out of reach, so utterly useless.

The hunter slammed her once, twice against the door, crippling its hinges until it broke open and hung sideways. Fighting for breath, she didn't register the pain as she should have. It made to move through, but she jammed a foot against the door frame, and with her last ounces of strength, kept it at bay.

Denied, it dragged her close, roaring in her face, the bands circling its hair vibrating from the volume. As darkness crept in, her vision narrowed to the single strip of its visor. She felt a smile touch her lips, knowing that she was not afraid of whatever lay beneath, for this was a better way to go than all she'd feared in the last hours.

Quite abruptly, the hunter dropped her. She lay, sputtering and coughing, on the broken door. Even though she was free, she could not draw breath. Her throat felt like it had swelled shut. Her back was surely a latticework of bruises.

A booted foot came down on the small of her back, pinning her, though she'd made no attempt to move. Above her, the warrior with the metal arm. At its side, the two others, shoulder cannons aimed down.

The material its metal arm was made of was reminiscent of light shed from the planet Runite, a sort of cobalt blue. Half of its dreadlocks were gathered at the back of its head and twisted into a knot. The ends fell to its shoulder blades.

The hunter on the left was as bulky as the one with the metal arm, but the armor protecting its torso was so pocked and craggy that it looked like an eons-old canyon. Beneath, metal wound into fishnets over the skin of a reptile. Across its chest, it wore a string of clicking skulls skulls that clicked together and a swatch of russet fur like that of a fox.

The tallest of the three had much darker skin, with blue and brown mottling. Its tresses were longer than the others, beaded with multicolored spherical ornaments. It was taller by a foot and a half at least, and there was an unmistakable curve to its body - more muscular, yes, but slender and lithe at the same time. A female. Her mask was made of what looked like the palest of all possible golds, with two cutting, steely eyes. On the sides were fletched wings that arced up the cheekbones and stopped at the temples. Of all three, it was the most handsome, even where the color had begun to wear away. On its brow were two engraved lines, one swept diagonally atop the other.

Weapons of varying function and size hung from every inch of their persons. Some were obvious: blades in sheaths, spikes encrusting their greaved shins, collapsed spears like the one she'd wielded strapped to backs – but some had functions she could only guess at.

Runite, she'd chosen to call the one with the metal arm, was growling, his dreadlocks tossing back and forth in agitation. His foot remained on Nasira, but the hunter with the fur swatch - she named him Siwili, for fox - kept pushing him away.

Runite snarled something and planted the end of the spear in the floor, inches from Nasira's face. Siwili roared and shoved him. The female swept forward in one long stride, grabbing the top of Runite's mask and jerking his head back. He immediately dropped his aggression and let go of the spear, an odd clicking, chittering sound coming from him instead.

Nasira latched onto the opportunity - maybe the clicking wasn't Yutovian, but it was proof that this strange species was capable of articulating and perhaps understanding something other than roars.

Clicking her tongue against her teeth, she said, "Why?"

She could say nothing more complex, as it would require a signing accompaniment, and she was not eager to see whether moving from her place on the floor would provoke the three of them into attacking her.

They went quiet, the two males bowing their heads as the huntress stepped forward. Tresses, dubbed so for her unique hair, looked down on Nasira, the same slow clicking sound coming from her mask.

Siwili came forward, putting his hand out. Tresses did the same, and he drew his knuckles over her open palm. He seemed to be seeking permission. Based on the way Tresses seemed to command the room, Nasira deduced that perhaps their species prescribed to some sexual dimorphism, in which the females were stronger and more dominant.

Siwili and Tresses conferred, heads bowed together. Runite was pacing in the far corner, swinging his fists as though readying himself for a fight. Sensing the other's preoccupation, he took the opportunity to stop and glare at Nasira, tensing his shoulders in a threatening manner.

Tresses crooked a finger at Nasira, gesturing for her to stand. She gave Runite a sidelong look, then did as the enormous huntress had indicated.

Standing, more potent was the feeling of how utterly dwarfed she was. Tresses had to be over eight feet tall to Nasira's five-ten. She was the most impressive thing Nasira had ever seen, with the build of a mythical Amazonian woman, or even the very real, ancient gladiators from the planet of Thouopro's past. Indeed, she participated in one particular noteworthy trait both peoples shared - a single breast, her left, encased in a cupped metal breastplate.

Tresses flipped a panel on her gauntlet and a hologram flashed into existence. It showed three red and orange figures - quite obviously a sophisticated form of thermal imaging - from a distance, then magnified. Cooler colors gave the impression of facial features, and Nasira knew she was looking at the same scene as the one that had transpired in the lifeboat bay.

She watched Marcus attack Edmund and her, in turn, disable him. She saw herself as Runite had seen her, sheltering the two men behind her. She saw the spinning shaft of the spear from Runite's point of view. She saw herself charge him, only to end up kicked away. He raised his spear, brought it down on where Edmund had been before Nasira tackled him out harm's reach. She saw herself plunge the spear into Runite's foot, saw his vision cut out as the functions of his mask went haywire as the electricity surged through it.

As it replayed, a steady thrumming sound issued from Runite. She thought she heard the cracking of knuckles, but didn't dare look away for fear of retribution at the hands of Tresses. Inattention didn't seem like a permissible action around her eminence.

Tresses dispelled the hologram and gripped Nasira's shoulder. She didn't even have time to worry that Tresses could crush her with the basest of effort before the huntress shook her, rattling her teeth in her skull. Then she stepped back, thumped her chest, and inclined her head.

Nasira had the impression Tresses was congratulating her, so she nodded her head back. The motion inspired a hefty snort from Runite, but she avoided looking at him. Siwili, too, nodded at her.

He disappeared through the doorway and returned moments later with her weapon. She regarded it, wary, for she was unsure of his intentions. But then he flipped it around and offered her the grip. She still hesitated - did they want her to pick up where Runite and she had left off?

He offered it to her with more force, and she had no choice but to take it.

The two regarded her (Runite looked resolutely into a distant corner) as if waiting for her to offer something in return.

Cautiously, Nasira spoke.

"I'm…Sergeant Lathan. Of Adrara." She felt like she'd introduced herself a thousand times since departing Uataislurn, but so far it had allowed her some measure of control over the happenings on the ship. But doing so now, it was possible she was condemning herself. If this species was capable of light travel yet remained a mystery to the alliance, it meant they probably wanted nothing to do with Adrara.

Sure enough, Siwili's rumbling turned distinctly unpleasant. At the mention of Adrara, Runite straightened up. He took two enormous steps toward her before Siwili blocked him. Nasira tensed but did not shrink away.

Siwili could not stop him from what came next - maybe Tresses could have but she did not - and Runite's mask said in the faint voice of a human man,  _"…Hermaðr?"_

Nasira frowned, uncomprehending.

"I don't -"

He made an exasperated motion and found a new voice to use.

_"You are a kingsman at arms?"_  In another voice,  _"A gendarmes?"_

"I'm…yes, I suppose."

He relaxed. She noticed that he was now favoring his right foot, as though before he'd been making a conscious effort to ignore the injury of his left.

She addressed Tresses. "Why are you here?"

Tresses looked to Siwili, and he explained in her place, using the audio they'd gained from Runite by the lifeboats. It seemed the functions of their masks were interconnected, as all three were able to access the same data. The voice that came was her own, as clear as though she were hearing herself say it for the first time.

_"What can you tell me about this creature?"_

She remembered the odd distortion at the end of the hallway, moments after she'd left the site of Prono's death. It was the same effect as the one that had fallen like water from Runite. One of them had been there when she left Prono's office, moments after his death. She knew they were aware she'd been present when the alien had experienced its heinous parody of birth.

"The alien," she said. "The one that bursts from a body. It grew to an enormous size."

This time the voice that came from his mask was not hers, but Marcus'.  _"I thought you said you'd killed it."_

"I don't know whether I managed to kill it or not," she said.

Siwili shook his head.  _"This creature."_

"It escaped," she said.

Siwili pointed at her weapon and echoed her words to Marcus.  _"You've got a responsibility to help me find your specimen."_

"Find it," she said. "And kill it?"

Siwili thumped his chest. An overwhelming tiredness filled Nasira - too much had transpired in the last hour for her to know how to deal with it. But here, an opportunity for help had presented itself: to face that vile creature once more. To fight it. To kill it.

She would not allow these hunters near her passengers, but she would trust them - if only the tiniest amount. Just enough to put an end to the alien that had trespassed upon her life and was, undeniably, her responsibility. That was what Adrara, what the alliance, expected. That was what she told herself as she placed one hand on her weapon's holster, and fixed the hunters with a single burning gaze.


	6. Resinous Lair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A translucent curtain of veined purple resin leads to the north half of the building. A pile of opened skulls is neatly stacked in the south west corner.
> 
> The stocks are occupied, three thralls hang lifeless, gruesome fluids dripping from their emptied skull cavities.

The alliance was, in some aspects, a living entity. Its lungs breathed with its citizens and its chest rose with their triumphs. It was its own nebula, reaching out with tendrils of light and creation, each branching arm home to a different virtue. Its inhabitants had been living harmoniously for centuries. It was her own species who thought themselves besieged by threats to their culture. There was the insistence that the alliance was weighted with dogma, that it wanted to unravel humanity - strip it to its core, so that it may be rebuilt and assimilated. They feared indoctrination. They feared invasion.

She'd tried to depart from this falsehood. Oh, how she'd tried. But it seemed just as difficult to convince her people when she was what she was - not alien, but something different. They didn't want to acknowledge her as their advocate, for reasons that made her wonder if she'd ever be able to fulfill her duty.

The way Marcus looked at her — he was all her critics, united.

No one liked that the entire human population had been screened instead of a select pool of those who could afford it. No one liked that it had been run by Adrara instead of Earth's own government. No one liked that the victor emerged from a war-torn country scratching around in the ruins leftover from generations of strife. No one liked that she was young, that she subscribed to seemingly archaic beliefs, that she was the product of two people that ought to have been worlds apart.

While her own people had spat vitriol, she'd petitioned on their behalf. She'd fought to create a place for them in this ever-widening universe. Her plight seemed endless. She'd spent a lot of her life shaking hands or saluting. Bowing low or standing rigid. Walking in stride, shoulder to shoulder. Making room for sweeping tails to pass. Learning etiquette for any number of cultures. Consenting to be lifted into the air by her winged guide was no different than accepting help over uneven ground. It came easily to her. It cost nothing to surrender herself to learning. She wanted to share. She wanted to give.

And of the many companions she'd met or traveled with, she'd never thought any of them strange.

Walking with these three should have been similar, but there were several small difference that made themselves clear after only a few seconds.

Despite the trinkets adorning their bodies, they moved almost soundlessly, with all the grace of felines haunting any forest, any jungle, any savanna. They were not just hunters. Humans of old were hunters, waiting in shelters for an animal to walk past, to lower its head to drink. These…individuals…were more. They were the foe of every gentle creature caught unawares. They were predators.

The predators kept to a formation Nasira found curious: Tresses melded into stealth, but the light bouncing from her solid form was visible at times. She kept to a distance of about thirty yards, orbiting. Siwili kept near her, also invisible. Runite brought up the rear. To a bystander, Nasira walked alone.

Their progress was almost aimless, Nasira taking turns and the predators adjusting. She thought that one of them would take charge. After all, she knew nothing of the alien organism's habits.

To Siwili, she voiced this, keeping her volume low. It felt odd to be addressing him out of the blue, and even odder that he was invisible. "Where are we going?"

He growled but did not answer.

She said, "I don't know anything about it."

Siwili grabbed her upper arm, forcing her to stop. His cloak fell from him, and he jutted a finger in the direction they'd been walking.

_"I'll walk you,"_  her own voice said to her. Reminding her of her agreement to help find the organism.

Nasira shook her head. "But I don't know how."

_"This creature."_

"I  _know_ ," she said, exasperated. Siwili rapped her on the head as her voice rose. She didn't dare retaliate in kind, but she did say, "It escaped earlier. I've got no idea where it went."

He jutted a finger at her chest.

"What?" she said.

_"Get to the central bunker."_

He tossed his head and started her walking again, but she dug her feet in. Concern gripped her heart. He wanted her to lead him to the central bunker? There were thirty people taking shelter within it. She could not allow those bulkheads to open with these predators anywhere nearby.

"No," she said. "I can't. The doors are closed. There's nothing I can do about it."

In response, Siwili's shoulder cannon wheeled into a firing position. Dread made her sick. They'd blast through the bulkheads? Could they manage that with those weapons?

"No," she said again. "You can't force those doors open. People will be hurt." As she said it, she worried that perhaps they didn't care. Or that it was what they wanted.

Runite, it seemed, had gotten sick of her resistance. He stormed to them and, as Siwili had, encircled her arm in his fist, dragging her.

Tresses roared, sacrificing stealth for the behavior of her companions. She'd uncloaked, and was pointing at the ground at her side. Runite let go of Nasira as if he'd been burned. Nasira hurried to obey, glancing back at the two males as she went. She had no choice but to accompany Tresses when the huntress turned into the next hallway - as if she knew with certainty that it was the one leading to the central bunker.

* * *

The bulkheads were just off the fuselage. Twenty feet tall and perfectly sealed, they seemed impenetrable. It was the worry that they were not so making Nasira anxious.

When Nasira had left, she'd told Remie to close the bulkheads after them. She knew if they weren't shut, she'd be risking the lives of everyone inside. She'd ordered Marcus and Edmund to go there, but she had no idea whether they'd managed it. The bulkheads looked like they'd been holding for centuries, could hold for an eternity more. There was no access port, no terminal, no cameras. Nothing that could give her access to the central bunker, and no way she could see to contact those inside. Had Marcus and his son arrived only to find the same thing?

Tresses had called up a hologram from her wrist computer again. This time the display was ovular, misshapen in places. She zoomed in, revealing a three dimensional structure. Concentrated towards its center was a mass of red. Further out, four small pinpricks. And apart from them, two more.

Nasira's head turned in the direction she knew she'd find their source.

Couldn't Marcus manage to do a single thing she told him?

Just as they had been after fleeing the lifeboat bay, they'd hidden themselves insufficiently - this time behind the boarding turnstiles.

Maybe Tresses didn't care about them, but to move to shield them would attract attention. She couldn't do anything for them without alerting the predators.

Just her glance in that direction was enough. They spun, shoulder cannons whining with heat. Three pairs of red lasers scanned the turnstiles and settled nearest where Marcus' head had just ducked down.

"Stop!" Nasira said, charging into their line of fire and throwing her arms wide. The roar this elicited was infinitely more violent, more frightening than any she'd heard so far, but she stood her ground. She shut her eyes. The red marks on her heart were actually hot, and she was sure that in moments a hole would be punched right through her by the combined efforts of all three. She would be dead instantly, the crater cauterized before it could even bleed.

It didn't happen.

She opened her eyes to see Tresses and Siwili standing loosely, guns pointing at the ground. Runite did not drop his aim.

Siwili said, " _This creature."_

Realization became a supernova in her brain.

"This creature," she repeated, looking over her shoulder.

_I thought you said you'd killed it._  That was what he'd said to her.

_I don't know whether I managed to kill it or not._ That was what she'd said to him.

He'd shaken his head.  _This creature._

And then,  _You've got a responsibility to help me find your specimen._

Before,  _I thought you said you'd killed it._ Marcus, when she told him that he'd have to help her find it..

He'd not been asking her whether she'd killed the alien, the creature. He'd been using the voice, not the meaning of the words, to explain what he'd wanted. Who he'd wanted.

_Find it,_  she'd asked,  _and kill it?_

Marcus.

* * *

"You can't."

She was aware that was what came out of her mouth. She didn't have a reason behind it. Not one that she could easily communicate. Her awareness swam back up to the surface.

"You can't kill him. I'm responsible for him."

Tresses stopped, seeming to analyze her. Then she gestured to Runite, who took his spear from his back and held it out to her with what looked like great reluctance.

When she didn't take it, he flicked the trigger and it extended, startling her. He tilted his head, rattling what sounded like an inquiry.

Nasira's gaze went from the spear to Tresses.

She took a step back.

"No," she said.

Tresses set her hand on Nasira's shoulder and shook it, not as hard as the first time. This seemed more like an apology. Tresses had acknowledged her as capable before, but she now wanted Nasira to know that the two things had nothing to do with one another. Regardless of what she could find to say, nothing would change the fact that these enormous predators thought Marcus criminal enough to all turn on him in unison, weapons primed to kill.

Whether Nasira took up the spear or not, he would die.

She couldn't let that happen.

She had no way to make these predators understand.

She had to try.

Nasira removed Tresses' hand from her shoulder. " _No._  You can't kill him. He must go before Adrara, to determine whether his negligence was intentional. And his son is innocent."

She didn't know whether what she'd said about Edmund was true, but she used it, appealing to their better nature.

It was almost no plan at all. But it was what she had.

Nasira continued. "I don't know what you want him for. But I do know that he has knowledge of the creature he released onboard. He could be of help."

Tresses activated the playback in her mask.

Panic. Chaos. People crying out, so many that she could not guess at the language they spoke. Hissing, shrieking sounds. She was recounting some tragedy for her, the reason they were after Marcus.

She didn't understand. Couldn't she just show her what had happened the same way she'd done for the fight between Nasira and Runite? The voices did not belong to the predators. Were they seeking retribution for a species not their own?

If she was correct, what did that make them? What were these predators?

What was Marcus, really?

"Marcus. He's hurt many people?"

Tresses inclined her head.

Nasira said, "He's hurt people here as well. And here is where he is now. I can't just hand him over. He's a citizen of the alliance. I'm detaining him on behalf of Adrara. He must answer to his acknowledged government."

There was the sound of shearing metal, and then curving wrist blades the length of Nasira's arm sprung from Siwili's gauntlets. Runite withdrew the spear and instead snapped it up to bear, spinning it with masterful grace, readying himself, just as he'd done earlier. It felt odd to see it now and not be the center of his fixation, the focus of his violence.

To what lengths would she go to protect Marcus, who she knew had knowingly endangered the lives of at least thirty people? Did she regret not taking the spear from Runite and to use it against the predators? Would Adrara deem her actions appropriate if she were to turn against this species unbeknownst to the entire alliance? Could she risk destroying any pact they might have with the predators?

She did not have time to arrive at a conclusion for any of the questions that besieged her, for Tresses let out a ferocious roar, so loud that Nasira's eardrums flexed in protest and she had to clap her hands over her ears.

Marcus, who'd ducked out of sight when Siwili's wrist blades had shown themselves, saw fit to peek out from around the turnstiles again. Nasira had a brief moment to worry that his reappearance would provoke the two male predators, but they were looking to Tresses in subordination.

And just as on Uataislurn, she was the only one to bear witness to disaster. Looming high above Edmund was a jumbled mess of ebony limbs moving together like mechanized pieces of a deadly machine.

Edmund screamed as the alien bore down on him.

The predators dropped into defensive crouches, but Nasira was already moving toward the turnstiles, weaponless, but knowing she had to do something.

Marcus and Edmund tried to hurdle the turnstiles but were not fast enough. The alien's bone tail lashed, and Marcus skidded across the floor, grunting. Edmund tripped, smashing his face against the turnstile. He grabbed the bar and held on as the alien dragged him back.

He did not let go, his deadly ultimatum lending him strength. but the bar snapped free and the alien pulled him backwards. The bar clattered onto the floor, left behind. His cries rounded the corner and fell on her ears like accusations.

Why couldn't you do anything?

It had happened so fast - she wasn't even two steps from where she'd started.

Nasira whirled, addressing the predators. "Help him!" she demanded. Their shoulder cannons were cold and unmoving. It seemed they'd never even considered it. She rounded on Runite, holding her hand out for the spear. "Give me that." He made a chuffing sound but did not. She reached for it but he pulled it from her reach.

Disgusted, she grabbed the turnstile bar from the floor. It was solid, about five feet long. Heavy enough to cause damage to soft tissue, but on the alien's carapace, she didn't know.

She had no words for Marcus. He would stay here, she knew, sputtering and hugging the turnstiles. If the predators killed him while she was gone, then that's what would happen. She'd save who she could save, and she wasn't confident about her chances nor her willingness to defend a man who wreaked this havoc on all of them.

She ran into the next part of the ship, the baggage check, trusting that the alien would be too preoccupied with a screaming, struggling Edmund to care about her. It hadn't killed him - if she'd only happened upon the site of his abduction later, she'd find no blood. Just like with the crew on the bridge. The alien was taking them somewhere, possibly to protect its kills.

Kills. She couldn't think that, even though Edmund's screams had long since stopped reaching her.

The counters and conveyors were all bare. The baggage chute waved tattered flaps at her.

Nasira shook her head, incredulous, but was already moving closer. She peered down into the sloping darkness. The chute was wide enough that it'd permit the alien and Edmund with little difficulty.

But what would she find at the bottom?

She didn't let herself think. Boosting herself up onto the belt, she scooted feet first into the opening, then started to slide, lying back so her head would clear the top.

Her chin banged into something, bending her head back painfully and halting her, her lower body a quarter of the way into the chute. She grasped it as a reflex, using it hold her weight as gravity tried to pull her further in. She couldn't lift herself high enough to look at what had stopped her, but she felt the texture against her palms - wrought and pebbled for easier gripping. Runite's spear.

He held it across the opening, barring her from the chute. It pressed into her chest and made it hard to breathe. He stood there, rattling a curious sound.

" _Move_ ," Nasira said. She was stuck in an awkward chin-up position, the shaft of the spear too low to slide under or even pull herself further up. The ceiling of the chute was slick, so she couldn't jam her toes against it. The effort of holding herself there, coupled with the mounting sense of desperation that pressed in on all sides, made it difficult to utter the words.

"You had your chance to help. Get out of my way." He tilted his head at her. Red tinged her vision - the fuzzy heat of rage made it hard to think, to want to form a coherent sentence. In a foxhole, with Edmund awaiting rescue, gone was the diplomat. " _Fucking get this thing off of me!_ "

He did not move to do anything of the sort. Nasira, wrathful, scissored her legs within the confines of the chute, twisting, kicking, squirming beneath the spear until she felt herself start to slide again. He abandoned his efforts with the spear and grabbed at her, succeeding in seizing the fabric of her hijab. Her hands went up before he could rip it off, and, elbows banging into the sides of the chute, caught hold of him. He let go, tried to adjust his grip on her wrists, but she bared her teeth, sinking them into the back of his hand.

He roared and let go, accidentally - or purposefully - whipping her in the face, one of his talons opening a line of fire on her cheek. She plummeted down the chute, the turnstile bar banging into the walls as she went. She tucked the bar into her stomach, trying to secure it. After what felt like hundreds of feet of sliding, the bottom of the chute dropped away from her and she rolled to a battered stop on the baggage cart beneath.

Nasira was up in a moment, scanning her surroundings, all thoughts of Runite wiped clear from her mind. There was no movement. Nothing at all. She held the turnstile bar in front of her and crept forward.

The baggage storage compartments were all secure. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until she rounded the corner.

Her foot crunched down on something. Kneeling, she examined the ground. The grated floor was from here hidden by some kind of foreign terrain. It had a slight sheen to it Perhaps it was some kind of secreted resin. But secreted from what? Droplets of liquid clung to the separate layers, and when she pinched her fingers together, the ooze stretched between them. She wiped her hand on her pants and kept going. The walls were coated in it as well.

Water dropped from the ceiling. Her hijab muffled her hearing - the water pinging off of it was almost maddening. The air was uncomfortably humid, making it hard to draw breath. She came to a perpendicular junction; both ways looked the same. She went right and found that the alien terrain ended after only a few feet. She doubled back and ended up in a larger room filled with objects that looked like they were made of the same material.

"Nasira," said a faint voice.

Embedded in the wall was Edmund - she almost missed him, so complete was the way he'd been cocooned, restrained by several lengths of the hardened resin and covered in ooze.

Glancing around, she made sure the alien was no longer present. Why would it leave him alone so soon after capturing him? It was nowhere to be seen, so she sidestepped several of the knee-high obstacles to get to the wall. She was just deciding on how to free him when he choked out the words, "Behind you."

A shape sprung from one of the objects on the floor - she swung the turnstile bar and batted it away. It smacked into the far wall and skittered back towards them. She dodged and turned back in time to see the pale spider-creatures leap through the air again, its brain-stem tail roping around Edmund's neck. She thrust a forearm up to block it from touching him, but its bony legs crept past her arm, intent on gripping his head.

Something probed wetly at the inside of her arm and she guessed with no small amount of horror what it must be.

"Edmund, keep your mouth shut!"

She levered her arm against the parasite, but its tail kept it from going far. Her fingers clawed at its pink flesh, but it was latched on. The strength it possessed was enormous; her arms shook after just a few seconds of struggling. She couldn't take a hand off of it to attempt anything with the turnstile bar - it was all she could do to keep it at bay. Just as she'd done to stop Runite, she planted her foot against the wall and threw her entire weight into it, uncoiling the tail as best she could so Edmund wouldn't strangle, but his pale face was lightening still.

By some miracle it worked, and the thing jerked free off him. Nasira fell backwards onto the floor. The parasite tried to wriggle away from her but she kept it secure beneath an arm, groping for the turnstile bar with the other hand. She planted it square on the things fleshy inner folds and drove it down.

Dull though the end was, yellow blood erupted from the parasite as it crushed it, spattering her boots which began to smoke. Flecks of it burned through to her skin, but she ignored the pain, keeping the bar on the parasite even as it began to melt as well. The tail thrashed, curling around her leg with none of the strength as before. Finally, it lay dead, the turnstile bar about two feet shorter and dripping metal.

She kicked the parasite away, breathing hard, and looked up to see Runite in the hallway.

His shoulder cannon was reared into firing position and held his spear at his side. He offered no assistance, and she wondered what he would've done if she or Edmund had succumbed to the parasite. Nasira wiped water droplets from her cheek and turned her back on him.

"Hold on. I'm going to get you out."

She started yanking at the strange material. It had the tactile characteristics of fiberglass even though it looked like it ought to be brittle. Through her gloves, she could feel it cutting and scraping her hands.

"Here, put your arm around my shoulders." He fell free from the cavity and she hauled him upright so as much of his weight was on her as she could manage. She felt heat on her leg and realized the flesh where the alien had towed him away was bleeding.

Runite was still watching, tilting his head and following their movement with what looked like vague interest. Nasira resisted the urge to snap at him - had he come all the way down here just to watch her struggle? - but her ankle was burning where acid had hit it, and now she was supporting a hundred and fifty pounds of human boy. She had no doubt that Runite could carry Edmund without breaking a sweat, but he didn't seem inclined towards helping. He'd slowed her down enough earlier.

He approached her and then held out a hand. She tried to duck away, but with Edmund's weight, couldn't manage it. He gripped her chin and pawed with a finger at the cut he'd opened on her cheek.

"Get off!" she said, jerking back. She readjusted Edmund and started moving away. Runite went to stand over the dead parasite, then to the other hallway. He stood like a statue in front of it. Nasira look at him more closely. His muscular back was to her, and she could see, without him noticing, the composure, the control in the way he held himself. His every aspect was fine-tuned for fighting the same way nature selected its own predators for evolution.

What was he doing?

She tore her gaze away and started heaving Edmund out of the resinous lair.

After a moment, she felt Runite abandon the lair's mouth and begin to follow.


	7. Ossuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ossuary: latin
> 
> noun
> 
> 1\. a container or receptacle, such as an urn or a vault, for holding the bones of the dead.
> 
> 2\. a place where the bones of the dead lay.

Two humans, one supporting the other, stumbled through a darkened doorway with a predator shadowing them. Runite, though not overly congenial personality-wise, provided some measure of security for their retreat. He was nearly soundless, but Nasira felt his presence the entire trek. Reassurance was there like a flame enduring in a hibernal wasteland - she wouldn't have to look over her shoulder for an ambush, at least.

They'd returned to the fuselage to find the other two predators standing in one of the seating bays. Marcus was near them, sitting rigid, wary of his guards.

Nasira deposited Edmund in a seat and shoved past Runite to get to one of the staff cupboards. She cracked open one to reveal a stock of first aid kits. She ran back to Edmund, ripping his pant leg at his knee then discarding it.

The gash the alien had made was about four inches long and bleeding copiously. She swabbed it clean and wrapped it with bandages. The burn on his shin was minor, but she spread ointment on it as well. He grimaced as she worked.

"Can you do this?" she asked, holding out a syringe and a vial of what would function as antibiotics and painkillers in his system. He shook his head, a sheen of sweat on his face. She did it for him, piercing the vial with the syringe and then finding a vein, bright blue, standing out against the starkness of his skin.

He lay back, his next word just a whisper.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," she said, and stood. "Wait here, please. Don't stand up, your bandage will seep."

She walked to Marcus, ignoring the exaggerated way the predators' heads turned to follow her. She sat beside him.

"Do you have any injuries?"

He looked at her, the skin beneath his eyes weathered by age. He did not answer.

"The tail hit you pretty badly. Let me look. Can you hold up your arms for me?"

She helped him lift his shirt. On the side of his ribs and back was a trail of ruddy bruises. At the end was a small cut. She cleaned it and applied a bandage.

"Why are you doing this for me?" he asked. Heaviness weighted his every word.

She continued what she was doing for some time before answering. "Because it's my job."

This was greeted with silence.

She sat back, stuffing the contents of the first aid kid back into some semblance of order. Pretending not to notice as the predators continued to stare, she went back to Edmund.

He was wavering between awake and asleep, but he managed to say, "You sounded like him."

"Who?"

He nodded at Marcus.

Her gaze snapped to him. "What do you mean?"

The blood on his face cracked as he conjured a smile. His voice took on a canny, theatrical tone as he imitated what she'd shouted while wrestling with the parasite. "Edmund, keep your mouth shut."

This elicited a snorting laugh that she didn't know was her own until her hand went up to her mouth. The predators straightened up at the sound, and she hastened to smother it.

"I'm sorry," she said. She distracted herself by wetting a piece of gauze and using it to clean the blood from his face.

"Don't be," he said. "I said it to make you laugh. You summarized the last ten hours of my existence in about a millisecond. I'm Edmund, by the way."

"I'd guessed that."

He was still looking at her expectantly, so she said, "I'm Nasira."

"Yeah. Didn't you hear me say it back there?"

She gave him another good-humored glance before attempting to flatten her expression. The two larger predators had disregarded her laughter, looking on to something more interesting, but Runite's mask remained tilted in their direction.

Nasira shook her head and continued to dab at the crusted blood on his face.

"Does that hurt?" she asked.

"No. I don't think it's broken."

"Well, keep your head tilted forward and hold this here until it stops bleeding."

"'Kay," he said in a silly nasal parody of when he'd had to speak past the blood in his nose. "I can't believe the first time I ever talked to you was after having my nose stoved in."

"You spoke before that." She lowered her tone. "To tell me about Marcus."

"Oh." His eyes darted away. "Right."

She wanted to ask him about why Marcus had done it - why he'd brought the organism onboard in the first place - but she didn't want the predators to hear any damning details that would inspire them to readdress their decision to keep him alive. And why had they? With her gone to save Edmund, Tresses could've easily done away with him. She'd have to wait until…

Until when? She didn't know why they'd spared him in the first place. She didn't even know why they were here. Marcus had done something unforgivable by the state of things, so they ought to have pushed her aside and killed him straight out. But they hadn't. Which meant they were waiting for something.

Maybe Tresses had decided to acknowledge Nasira's responsibility for him. Since they were of the same species, it gave Nasira the right to be the one to dole out justice. She was not eager to mention that Marcus would, if Nasira had her way, go before a tribunal to determine his guilt. Nasira would have little to do with it aside from providing her report on the matter.

She tugged off her boot. There was a tiny cropping of acid burns on her ankle. There was nothing she could do but put ointment on them. Lines of blood crisscrossed her palms where she'd pulled Edmund from captivity. She poured antiseptic over them, her breath hissing as she did, then applied a thin bandage that sealed over the lacerations like a second layer of skin.

Beneath the lid of the first aid kit was a mirror. The line on her cheek from Runite was bloody, but minor. She took care of it as well.

She put her boots back on and stood. Edmund noticed.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to do something."

He followed at a limp. "What do you have to do?"

He didn't let up, even as she turned to leave the fuselage. It seemed he meant to go with her the entire way, so she helped support him so he could avoid putting weight on his leg.

"Earlier, I went up to the forward array but never got the chance to fix it." She omitted why this had been the case, for the moment unwilling to recount the tale and feel again the cold stone of regret that buried itself in her stomach. "We're still not able to contact anyone, but I want to see how far the lifeboat I sent is. It's homing functions are directly connected to the Cavalier, so even without the array, I should be able to communicate with it. Control it, even."

She felt eyes on her back and turned to see one of the predators. In front of it was Marcus. Unsure of what it wanted, she kept going, but the predator - Tresses, she could tell from the dissonance of its roar - forced Marcus forward.

"We're to accompany you, it seems," Marcus said. Nasira looked away in exasperation. With just Edmund, they would be clumsy - she'd acknowledged that when she'd started helping him walk. With Marcus and the predators joining them, they'd be a traveling circus. The hallway had two levels, and further up there was another cloaked predator balancing on the ledge. As they passed beneath, it moved to follow them. She paid them little mind - their presence might dissuade the alien creatures from stalking them in the ducts.

* * *

The bridge was still open, the lights over the workstations illuminating the room. Nasira helped Edmund take a seat then went to the command station.

Work half-done greeted her much in the same way an obituary would. This was Captain Uicra's last effort to regain control of the ship. If she went to the engineer's station, she would see what Buhbda had seen as he guided her up to the forwarding array.

She quelled her wayward thoughts and sifted through the computer's functions. The foremost window was dedicated to sending a transmission, but when she tapped it, it reminded her that there was an error with the forwarding array. She hadn't expected it to work, so she moved on.

When she opened the emergency functions, there were several listed. Among them was a lift of lifeboats and their prepping details. Another was the status of the central bunker in bright green lettering. SEALED. Outlined in white were the thirty passengers inside. Her face, previously drawn in contemplation, softened. They were safe. Their levels were good. From here, she had the option to reroute several utility conduits to supply the central bunker, depending on whether she deemed them safe. She had no need to go over them now, so she minimized the window and went to the lifeboats.

They were listed by symbol and numeral - the one she'd commissioned was displayed fifth in the order. She pressed to select it.

Nothing happened.

She pressed it again and held, trying to coax the interface into responding.

It did not.

A hand went to her chin as she thought. Why couldn't she contact it? At the least she should be able to open it's external cameras to try and gauge the condition of the lifeboat itself.

But she could not.

She turned around to make sure no one had seen her pause. Edmund was worrying at the top of his bandage and staring blankly at the counter in front of him. Marcus was leaning against a wall, eyeing the predators, who'd congregated to exchange utterances in their animalistic language.

Nasira turned back to the command station. She tried to override the user identification function. This was the captain's computer - it should have had the highest clearance. Even as the computer granted Prono access, she still could not toggle the lifeboat. The menu remained frozen, the lifeboat's tag grey and unusable.

A flood of windows opened as she toggled a new lifeboat. They showed her the climate conditions, the storage and seating capacity, the fuel levels. The computer was working, but she couldn't establish contact with the messenger lifeboat. Even though it'd separated from the Cavalier, she should have been able to see it. Something was wrong.

She prepped it for departure. She was loath to waste one, but she needed to know whether it was distance that prevented her from finding it, or if when the lifeboats separated they became inactive via the menu.

After releasing the seals on the docking mechanisms, she guided the lifeboat out of its bay. It kept pace with the Cavalier while it was near, but if she let it go, it'd be light years behind them in moments.

Before she could do so, a roar startled her.

Tresses was holding out her arm, upon which her red hologram was projected. It showed in mistakable clarity the port side of the Cavalier and the lifeboat alongside it.

The enormous predator did not want the lifeboat to leave, but any reason she could have for that was not one that overshadowed Nasira's need to get a message to the alliance.

Her back was to the console. Behind her, she nudged the lifeboats controls, managing to make it tumble out of the Cavaliers' path and into space.

Tresses snarled as the lifeboat vanished from her hologram. She looked to Siwili, who immediately began pushing buttons on his own wrist computer.

Nasira turned back to the console, feverishly tapping at the lifeboats' interface to set it on its course before either of them could stop her. There it was, brightening a path through uncharted space. She could see the seating in the interior, the engine. The bay doors. The rounded hull. Over that, she could see an immense brightness that belonged to no sun or star.

What?

The lifeboat's cameras cut out the instant the light reached it, obliterating it. It was soundless. She could only imagine it unfold, the debris blossoming like a flower hung in the black curtain of space. A bold grey line was struck over where Nasira had before been able to access its interface. This lifeboat and the prior one now stood out on the menu as twins, dead, unresponsive.

A stream of curses, half-completed and in a multitude of languages, spilled from her mouth. She pummeled the touch screen, beseeching it to overcome futility and work for her.

But there was nothing to do. The light had wiped the lifeboats from existence. They'd been disintegrated. Destroyed.

By the predators.

When she finally gave up, she did it with no small degree of frustration. She slammed her palms down on the counter top and gripped the edge until her knuckles turned white.

"Nasira?" came Edmund's voice, tentatively.

She whirled on the predators.

"Did you do that?" she seethed. "Why would you destroy it?"

Runite rose up to his full height and a threatening rumble rose in his chest but she took no notice.

Marcus stepped forward, but he was the last person she wanted to deal with. She did not need to talk her way past his oiled manner. She needed to abandon all attempts at diplomacy, for it seemed the only thing these predators deemed worthy of consideration was the heat of emotion, of instinct, of wrath. This violent species could do nothing but complicate their survival and destroy any chance they had for rescue, and she would not stand for it any longer.

She pointed behind her - where, light years away, the lifeboat had just been destroyed - as she spat the words. "Those ships are our only chance of getting anyone to realize where we are! You're telling me that the distress call I sent an hour ago didn't make it ten seconds out? Do you realize that if no one comes to get us that we'll be lost in empty space?" Inside of her was the crushing depths of a singularity - it pulverized her every particle to within a hairbreadth of its capacity as she ranted.

"This ship is infested with an unknown, hostile organism. This ship was at the end of its circuit when all this shit came apart. We have supplies enough for hours, not days, because we were supposed to stop on Thouopro." Her hand clawed down her front as she gesticulated. "Maybe it wouldn't have changed the fact that the organism is here, but at least we would've been in the inner system when it happened. We would've had a chance at military intervention! Was that your doing as well? Did you sabotage the engines and cause those thruster bursts?"

The beads on the crown of her hijab had come askew from her shouting. She tried to readjust them but she was shaking with rage.

How had they destroyed the lifeboats from on board the Cavalier? Were there more of them shadowing them from their own ship? That might give explanation to why they were off-course, and why their forward array was down. Then it struck her.

She looked at the predators, who were lined up as though to oppose her, and imagined their broad silhouettes as though they were still concealed by their cloaking device. When they were concealed, the only way she could see them at close range was the wavering water effect. It was a kind of active camouflage, using some kind of light bending technology. When she went up to the forward array, she had not seen it due to the blackness of space and the meager reflected light from the hull of the ship.

There was an invisible structure physically blocking the forward array. A ship, maybe. The method by which they'd been able to destroy the lifeboats as well.

Marcus stepped forward again, holding his hands out to pacify her. Distantly, she felt ashamed that he was the one to be calm, to be trying to invoke reason.

Her body, wound tight as a spring, did not loosen until the predators dropped their aggressive stance.

She was out of breath, lightheaded. She adjusted the beads on her hijab more carefully, letting their pearly texture soothe her.

Marcus said, "If the xenomorph - that's what we call them, you see, the hostile organisms, it means 'alien form' -"

"Yours," she interrupted, the single syllable like ice chipping. As if her methodical stroking of the beads had never made any headway in calming her down.

After a pause, he restarted, "Yes, mine. If my xenomorph had loosed itself —" he caught sight of Nasira's face — "I'm sorry, if my xenomorph had been loosed in the inner system, our situation could've been even more tragic than it is now. They're the ultimate predators, entirely without conscious. They exist only to propagate their numbers and annihilate anything that stands in their way. If the infestation had occurred within the inner system, every civilization on every planet in the galaxy would've been at risk."

"It's an animal," she said, derisive. "Even animals that reproduce quickly have never been able to take over their betters."

"Take an endoparasitoid," he spoke over her. "Take a wasp. Xenomorphs produce in much the same way. Aggressively, in great numbers, and always at the cost of their hosts."

"Such species have never posed a threat to lifekind," she retorted. "Even considering their size, they are animals. If Adrara lined up, wall to wall, to contain these creatures, you mean to tell me that they could not be dealt with?"

"In the same way a military could put down some rampant zoo animals? These creatures may not hold the same intelligence as you and I, but they were engineered to survive. Their exoskeletons, blood, their temperaments. Agility. All powerful defensive attributes. Their natural weapons - a pharyngeal jaw, bipedal and quadruped gaits. They have the motor control to manipulate even the finest of triggers. They are capable climbers and swim like crocodiles. They may survive for minutes at a time in a vacuum," he said. "They are, most assuredly, a threat. To you. To me. To everything."

"And you brought them aboard," she said grimly. "Tell me why."

He looked towards Edmund, and she raised her voice, directing the words at his profile. "And stay away from your son, Marcus. I'll not have a repeat of our earlier incident."

Edmund looked up. "Son? He's not my father."

This took Nasira aback. "Isn't he?"

"Marcus worked at the company with my father," Edmund said, glancing at him. "He died on Uataislurn."

Her aggression dropped away - she was awash with guilt. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize."

And then something pricked at the back of her mind.

"What…I'm sorry to ask — what happened?"

Marcus stiffened, and, across the bridge, Tresses and her companions looked straight at him, intent on his answer.

It was Edmund who explained.

"He was killed. I meant to tell you by the lifeboats…"

"To tell me about your father?" she asked.

"No. About Uataislurn."

"What happened?"

"He was killed by xenomorphs. There were xenomorphs on Uataislurn."

A snarl came from Runite, and Nasira was momentarily distracted.

"How…how did they get there?"

"The company brought them. They were kept in the — I don't know what they're called — the holy sites for their holiday. Ubrone, I think. There were thousands of them. They spread across the planet's face in hours. Nothing could have stopped it."

And, as Nasira knew would happen, he had no choice but to look at Marcus and finish.

"Someone intentionally seeded the entire planet."


	8. Water and Wind

_T_ _he bodies fell in mute synchronization. There were two of them, black spots on a leaden sky. Miles away._

Uataislurn.

She did not know much about Ubrone beyond that its denizens spent their time isolated with family and religious communities, but it was now that she realized the horrific scene she'd witnessed had not been the product of devoutest suicide.

They had not been extremists.

They had been victims.

_Panic. Chaos. People crying out, so many that she could not guess at the language they spoke. Hissing, shrieking sounds. She was recounting some tragedy for her, the reason they were after Marcus._

Tresses had tried to tell her.

The atmosphere pulsed in the wake of Edmund's testament. Marcus was leaning away as though he expected the predators to leap on him.

Victims. An entire planet. A genocide.

"Do you have any part in this?" she asked Edmund as she passed him.

"I just —"

"Then don't  _say_  anything else."

Marcus opened his mouth to speak, but Nasira interrupted.

"Do you really think I want to hear what you have to say right now?"

"I understand. Uataislurn was a tragic -"

"They were monks," Nasira snarled. "They were a peaceful people engaging in fellowship. And you killed them. An entire planet."

"I just did what they told me to. Richard and I weren't comfortable with it, but they didn't tell us what they meant to do. We thought we were there to test the effects of what the atmosphere had on their biology. But whatever happened to the planet will happen here if we don't evacuate. Without hosts, they can't spread. If we get directly to the lifeboats without meeting any of the creatures, they'll have no chance to infect any of them. Then we can abandon ship and let them die off."

She thought he would stop there, but then he added in a low undertone, "Besides, all they did was pray and light candles. It's not as though a planet like that was a real loss anyway."

Nasira reeled back as though he'd slapped her. Silence grew between them. The predators made no sound, seeming to have judged this development to belong to the three humans. When the next person spoke, it was Nasira, but it was with a devastating, almost pleasant, calmness.

"The individual," she mused, fighting to keep her voice level while trailing her fingertips over the counter as it went from smooth white to ridged black over the command station. She tilted her chin up as she spoke, already composing her formal statement on the matter. "…was treated with conduct befitting him and the situation at hand. None of his rights were violated, as you can see."

She whirled around and sank her fist into his face. She wanted to will her arm to go up to its elbow, to spike a gush of bone and blood into his brain, but somewhere inside of herself she found restraint. He crashed into the counter behind him, stunned, but not damaged.

"Facial lacerations and bruising, along with all other subsequent injuries suffered were accidental. It is here that I request the individual be tried to the full extent of the law and sentenced accordingly, taking into account his extreme indiscretion and finding his contriteness lacking. Thank you, council, for your time."

She rubbed the heel of her hand over her stinging knuckles. "Just those few sentences is all it would take to put you away for the rest of your life. And that's if I even deigned to show up for your sentencing."

"Jesus," he gurgled from his position laid out on the floor. He struggled to kneel. "Has being raised by those  _fucked_  Adrarans erased any loyalties you may have had for your own goddamn species?"

"I wonder," Nasira said, shaking in anger at the prospect of what he'd suggested. "Has inflicting this alien scourge on an entire planet erased any loyalties you may have had for life itself?"

She strode around him. Edmund had pulled his feet off of the floor and flinched as she passed. Marcus used the command console to help him stand. Blood from his nose speckled the interface screen. Hatred rose in Nasira like bile at the sight of it.

"Just send us off. No one that will admit it knows what happened on Uataislurn. If we leave, I'll accept whatever punishment I'm given."

"You will accept your punishment regardless. The people in the central bunker are safe as they are now," Nasira said, not looking at him. "I will not take a risk I do not need to take."

She turned so they couldn't see her face and let her head bow. Her fingers curled in and out of fists, and she fixated on the floor in front of her, simultaneously urging and banning tears to come forth. Someone ought to weep for the some billion extinguished souls on Uataislurn, but it could not be her, especially not now.

To console herself, she lifted her fingers to the beads on her hijab again, willing herself to calm. She didn't care whether the predators saw - it was Marcus who could not know the extent to which he'd rattled her.

"We will return to the fuselage for now," she said, taking pride in the steadiness of her voice. "And if you attempt anything that I don't give you express permission to do, I will take you to the nearest airlock."

She turned.

"And I'll let them have you."

Marcus' wide eyes went to the predators, who squared their shoulders. No doubt he remembered the shear of metal from Siwili's wristblades.

"I'd never," he said.

"I'm glad," she said, "that you understand me."

* * *

Since returning to the fuselage, Nasira had made Marcus sit in a seat and then kept him in her line of sight. Edmund was still worrying at his bandage, and the predators she had not seen since they'd disappeared partway through their march back to the fuselage.

It satisfied her to see that at last Marcus looked on edge; he bounced his leg and kept his body stiff against the back of his chair.

Now that she had no immediate goal, fatigue caught up to her. She slapped her cheeks to keep herself alert. Her eyes were scratchy with tiredness. Every part of her body creaked or ached in some way or another. It had been hours since she'd slept - longer, if she were to try to interpret all she'd been through. Prono's death, the ship veering off course. The miles-long space walk up to the forward array. Fighting the alien in the infirmary, and then Runite almost immediately after. Bargaining with the predators - for now it seemed she'd succeeded. Saving Edmund from the parasite. Confronting the predators about the lifeboats, and Marcus about Uataislurn.

Her eyes drifted shut but then immediately snapped open again.

Edmund noticed.

"Shouldn't you sleep?"

Nasira gave a short laugh. "Should I?"

He wrung his hands, shrugging. "I'd keep a lookout for you."

She fixed him with a severe look. She'd been warring with whether she ought to hold Edmund accountable for the events on Uataislurn.

Marcus had chosen Uataislurn because of its holiday, she knew. The alien infestation had spread like an outbreak, engulfing the entire planet. To think of how many had died like Prono had…Edmund said there'd been thousands of eggs, but there'd been millions of people on Uataislurn. Was a single generation of aliens enough to populate the planet in only a few hours?

And of course, no one would have realized what was happening until Ubrone ended and people began returning. Whoever was responsible for orchestrating the genocide could slip away, using time as a buffer for their misdeeds. Could they have managed to erase all traces of the aliens from the planet before that?

"Edmund," she said. "Why were you traveling with Marcus?"

His face fell. He picked at the end of his torn pants leg. "I found out about what was happening right as it became irreversible. There was only one place to go, so it made sense to get onto this last flight with Marcus. I was supposed to come back to Earth with him, to tell people what happened didn't involve his company. I think…", he trailed off, his lips tightening. "I think he would have left me there if I hadn't agreed to lie for him."

She didn't answer, so he continued.

"I'm sorry. If there was something I could have done, I would've. But it was an entire planet."

"Yes," she said. "It was."

Siwili approached. He looked between the two of them, although there was not much space there at all. Nasira leaned away from Edmund upon thinking of the implications.

In his hand was a knife. The blade was about six inches long, handsome and curving. He flipped it in his hand before offering the hilt to her.

She took it. Its weight, though not much, felt awkward. He demonstrated the way she should hold it, an odd reverse grip, but one that immediately helped its balance. It was passable, and Siwili evidently thought so, so he grabbed her shoulder and shook it hard enough to make her eyes lose focus for a moment.

He tapped the flat of the blade with two fingers and then pointed across the room at Tresses and Runite. Runite looked their way and then back at Tresses.

"I don't understand," she said.

He stepped back.

From his mask came a human voice. " _Watch_."

He turned and left, joining Tresses and disappearing through one of the doors.

Some way across the room, Runite was watching again. He was unmoving, the visor of his mask opaque and unreadable. Then he too turned, beaded hair flying. Unlike his companions, he did not leave the room, but stood on the far side of the fuselage like a sentinel.

"Watch?" Edmund asked.

"I think they're going to watch the room for us."

"How come?"

"I'm not sure. For him, maybe," she said, nodding at Marcus. Without the presence of the predators, he'd stopped hunching in his seat and sat ramrod straight again. She had to fight to keep emotion from rising again. For him to sit there knowing that he'd helped instigate the largest genocide the galaxy had ever seen, and then to have the audacity to try and justify it…it was unforgivable.

He was responsible, but she could not make an enemy of everyone around her. She had to trust that the predators were on her side. They just wanted to see Marcus reap the consequences of his actions on Uataislurn. The predators didn't seem concerned with Edmund, and they'd been present for what had transpired, so she decided that for now he was an ally.

Edmund said, "Why don't you think anyone has ever seen those guys before? I mean, they were able to land on our hull without anyone noticing - they've probably been around for awhile."

Nasira studied Runite. She also found it odd that Adrara and the alliance had never encountered the predators before. And Edmund was right - their technology established them as spacefarers. Had they managed to avoid the alliance in the same way the alliance avoided the humans for centuries? Nasira was impressed that they'd even managed it as humans began to advance into space. She knew of several planets that held more primitive life that Adrara had decided to avoid contact with for the sake of its own advancement at its own pace.

"You said that they were hunters. How did you know that?"

Edmund chewed his lip. " I saw them on Uataislurn. I think they were trying to stop the outbreak. But I guess they followed us here."

His hands were shaking. Nasira ducked forward, lowering her voice.

"Edmund, what did you see on Uataislurn?"

"Not much of anything. Our facility was up on the cliffs, so we were far away from what was happening. Until a few people came up to ask what was going on. But they were already infected." His lips thinned. "They knew what was going to happen to them. Two of them killed themselves before it could. The others didn't make it in time, and Marcus decided that we had to go before the chestbursters grew into adults."

So Marcus had just walked off the planet without a care in the universe. He'd pushed past her on the loading dock, knowing full well about the chaos trailing after him, but unconcerned with it.

More than ever, she was beginning to understand the predators' sentiments.

Edmund's tone was lighter now as he said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes?"

"Have you ever been to Earth?"

"Of course. I was born there. I was screened by Adrara and selected for my position when I was five."

"No, I mean…what do you know about it?"

Nasira gave him a curious look and then thought inward. Yes, she'd spent five years on Earth, but did not remember much.

"My mother and father were from two separate countries. I'm not sure how they met." She shook her head. "I'm not even certain of where we were living when I had to go away with Earth's military."

"Didn't you want to leave with them?"

"I wanted to be a part of Adrara. Earth's military was a necessary stepping stone."

"But did you like it?"

She dipped her chin, lowering her voice with it so that Marcus could not hear.

"I lived among people who considered me a traitor. I trained under instructors who never forgot to remind me exactly what they thought about a girl who wanted to wear a headscarf in the career for which I was bound. Who hid their prejudices in a guise of earthly ideals, trying to manipulate me, to confuse my loyalties. Seeming to not care that —"

The words caught in her throat and she debated abandoning the effort to get them out.

"What?" Edmund probed.

"I was in Earth's custody for eight years after I was screened. Until I was thirteen. It lasted from when I was five years old to when I was thirteen."

"Well - and I'm not saying it was right for them to do something like that to a child — but maybe they really thought they were doing what was right. I mean, not all of these species…some are fine, but others are just… _alien_. It's impossible to look at them and not see the differences between us."

"Of course there are differences. It's learning to appreciate each other despite those differences that creates the foundation for peace. That is the reason for my taking up this position: even if I cannot relate to a people, I must accept them for who they are."

"You think even Adrara would accept those guys?" he said, gesturing to Runite. "I'm sorry, but they're simplistic brutes. What if the technology they're using to get around space isn't even their own?"

She looked at him, incredulous. "You can say that knowing they are trying to right the wrongs committed on Uataislurn?"

"What proof do we really have of that?" Edmund argued. "Maybe they have some other reason for being here. Look at them — do they look like justice to you?"

"Do you demand that  _space_  tell you what  _it_  intends for us?" His eyebrows drew together in confusion so she continued.

"Do you demand that water and wind show you their reasons for carving a mountain?" She pointed in Runite's direction, paying attention to the detail of the light on his body, the way it also afforded stark lines to his muscular frame. "Is it for you to question the nature and motives of something you don't care to truly understand?"

His mouth opened and shut several times before he said nothing. She leaned away, exhausted after this exertion.

Her eyes, not for the first time, felt heavy. She tried to jar herself awake again but her consciousness was going, enticed by the heady promise of rest. Seeing Runite (who had been unmoving for some time) taking up vigil on the other side of the room comforted her in ways she was too tired to comprehend.

"I'll have that rest now, if you'll care enough to keep watch for me."

Still dumbstruck, he seemed to find it in himself to nod.

Nasira leaned back and, basked in the light of stars young and old, slept.

 


	9. Connate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> connate: latin
> 
> adjective
> 
> 1\. united; to cause to be in a state of mutual sympathy, or to have a common opinion or attitude.
> 
> 2\. being in close accord or sympathy; congenial.
> 
> 3\. existing at birth or from the beginning; inborn or inherent.

 

* * *

She dreamt of fingernails. Of claws tearing into rockbed, of gravity seizing treacherous authority over her. She held fast to her scarce purchase on the edge as her body hung freely over nothingness. Around her, forms surrendered to it, leaping from the cliff. Limply they fell, eager for their fated demise. Bloody viscera rained around her from those too slow to hurl themselves forward. Their chests burst and they tumbled to a stop, curving fingers and dead eyes peeking at her from where they lay sprawled at the top of the cliff to which she clung.

Something kicked her awake, a shriek on her lips that she managed to quell before it reached fruition. The first thing she saw was Marcus, still sitting as she'd left him. Edmund was a seat down from her, looking frightened. Runite's back got smaller as it receded through the seating bays.

"What happened?" she asked Edmund, groping for the knife Siwili had left her. She found it in the seat to her left.

"Sorry, I didn't know he was going to —"

"Is anything wrong?" she insisted.

"No, it's been quiet."

"How long?"

"A few hours."

"You didn't know who was going to do what?" she asked, scouring the darkened corners of the fuselage. Now that the ship was out from beneath the nebula, there was nothing to see by but the seating bay lights which provided only brief oases. They were set into structures that rose above each circular seating arrangement. As the limbs stood silhouetted against the spangled curtain of space, it was easy to imagine she was sitting beneath a tree. She settled herself into this fantasy, praying it would allow her to slough off the nightmare she'd endured.

Edmund pointed in the direction of Runite. He was standing in the light of a seating bay and throwing them short glances.

"It just came over here and kicked you as he walked by. Sorry, I would've woken you up but I didn't realize in time."

Nasira put her head in her hands, rubbing the numbness of sleep from her face.

"Were you having a nightmare?"

She touched the beads on her hijab and nodded. She was aware of Edmund watching her, so she kept her face averted.

"I mean, you were like that for awhile, so maybe I should have woken you up."

"It's alright," she said.

"I thought you needed the sleep, so I just left you."

"A fitful sleep is not always preferable to none at all," she said. She had yet to shake the vestiges of her nightmare from her, and it made her words tighter than she'd intended. "I'm sorry. Thank you for your concern. Truly."

There was little for her to do now than to stay awake. Though the consequences had not been severe this time, it was clear to her that if there was danger on their horizon, he would likely not have time to wake her. She looked to Runite, standing in a far seating bay. He'd shown no restraint in rousing her, though she wasn't sure of the reason behind it.

Edmund broke off any chance of her deliberating it further.

"I'm sorry about earlier, by the way. I've had some time to think about it. I didn't mean it to sound like I thought they —" he gestured to Runite "— were less than…well, I don't know." He turned to her, his expression beseeching her to understand. "How have you learned it? I struggle to avoid comparing things — people, I mean — to humans. If they're not human, I don't have a word for that. I don't have a basis for anything. I just…I  _can't._ "

"You mean you hold all lifeforms to the same standards you'd expect of a human? Of intelligence, of societal roles and values?" She shook her head. "You can't apply that to them. You  _cannot_. You have to look at it objectively."

She set her hands apart, trying to demonstrate the inherent separation between every encompassed species she knew to be true.

"Once you have acknowledged  _all_  people as unshakably so, regardless of their species or racial origin, you learn to refer to them as they are. Not humans, no. But equals who are just as deserving as you. Deserving of allowances, of recognition. Deserving of empathy. Lifekind writes itself — its lessons are there for you to adopt, if you let yourself. That's where you learn it.  _That's_  how you live in a universe that is no longer solely your own."

As she spoke, her gaze drifted to Runite. His back was still towards them, but his head moved in wide arcs as he surveyed the room. Half of his dreadlocks were free of the bindings and smacked into his back, just between his shoulder blades.

Edmund was quiet for what seemed like a long while. Nasira's mind was lost in the glints of light reflecting in the bands wrapped around Runite's hair.

Finally, he spoke. "Do you think we'll learn it?"

"We?"

"Humans. All of us."

She leaned her head against her chair, not moving her eyes from where they were even as she answered him. "I hope so."

* * *

After that conversation, the resulting silence became progressively weightier. She could not settle herself, so she got up from her chair, tucking the knife into the holster alongside her weapon and picking up the spear. Her legs felt weak, like they protested holding her. Sweat stung her upper lip. Her heart fluttered with unease.

She looked to Runite to see if he'd noticed anything.

The ceiling collapsed atop her in a mass of black weight, of spindly, roiling limbs. The spear was flung from her as she went down.

She fought against it, kicking the weight off of her, forcing her legs between herself and the alien's bulk. Looping her arm around, she stabbed out with Siwili's knife, felt the resistance of the alien's exoskeleton.

The alien squealed and pedaled its enormous claws against her, mauling her legs. She stabbed sideways this time as she rolled out from beneath it.

The alien righted itself, tail lashing for balance. It was then she was able to get a good look at the creature - it was smaller than the one she'd encountered in the infirmary, and a crest crowned its head. The crest was smooth, with two sharp blades protruding from each side like the ends of a hammerhead. The alien's gaze was as blind as all the others, an iron mask dropped over its face. Set close to its head were pustules that glowed a sickly yellow.

The alien backed up, its bowed legs assisting a bobbing gait. Blood streamed from its ankle where she'd stabbed it. It looked almost tentative to attack despite its earlier ambush.

Nasira held the spear ready, vision narrowing around its emaciated frame. Somewhere in the room, she knew Runite and the two humans were present, but she had no room for them as she faced down with this monstrous creature.

The alien bared dull teeth, raising its head. Its neck snapped bizarrely, a blur of motion and a flash of white fangs. Something wet slapped the seat behind Nasira. She heard the fizzing of acid on the upholstery.

Spit.

The alien had spit at her.

Its neck snapped again. Nasira threw herself to the side to avoid the next gob, which hit the column that supported the lights and began its work dissolving the metal.

She zigzagged towards the alien, avoiding acid flung at her. The creature kept backpedaling, leaping up onto chairs to avoid her. Nasira flipped the knife in her hand, careful to avoid the remnants of acid still on the blade and stood still.

Perched on the seat like a gargoyle, the alien hissed, and she saw the bubbling foam of acid collect in its mouth. She stood her ground, holding the knife ready.

The alien's neck snapped. Nasira hurled the knife and ducked out of the way.

It let out a shriek, a hissing, clawing mess on the floor. She avoided the alien's thrashing limbs and leapt at it, plowing the end of the spear into its ribcage. The alien's last hideous cry rattled out before acid squeezed around the edges of the spear. The chest filled with blood, drowning any sound the dying creature attempted.

Breathing hard, she watched it for a moment longer to make sure it was truly dead, then seized Edmund's arm and pulled him to his feet. She marched him over to Marcus, a safer distance away.

Runite was beside her now, looking down at the kill as it sank into a crater of hot slag. The spear still stood up in the alien's corpse.

Runite tilted his head at her. He pointed down at her legs and made a sign - splaying his fingers, he jerked his hands towards his middle in a violent motion - asking whether she was injured.

She signed a negative, twisting a fist like she was shaking her head. Though she felt that the alien's claws had indeed opened gouges, her pants had stopped the worst of it. Made from dense woven fibers, her uniform was more resilient than it looked.

Runite tapped the wrist of the hand that had been holding Siwili's knife, complimenting her usage of it.

Leaving him, Nasira circled the seating bay. The alien could not have dropped from the glass ceiling, almost fifty feet above. The column holding up the seating bay's branching lights was still intact despite the acid that had struck it. Craning her neck, she looked up into the the limbs. With the lights shining in her eyes, there was no way to see through the structure itself. She stepped onto one of the seats, but the glare was still harsh enough that it blocked her view. She grabbed one of the structure's limbs.

Runite rattled an inquiry at her as she climbed up onto the back of the chair. It still didn't give her the height she needed, so she pulled herself up by hooking an arm around the limb.

She felt Runite move beneath her and look up as though perplexed by her antics. She ignored him.

The lights beneath her now, the darkness was extreme. She hung there, waiting for her eyes to adjust so she could see how the alien had managed to clamor up into the structure and hide.

Pinpricks of starlight shone off a curving dome atop the structure. She squinted at it, unsure of what it could be. It was off center, situated strangely.

And then it moved, tilting upwards. The alien's lips skinned away from fangs in a hideous snarl.

Nasira dropped, banging her chin against the limb in her haste. Surprised, Runite did not move away in time, and she landed on top of him. He was hardly staggered by her weight compared to his own, but he roared in offense. Nasira scrambled away from him, out from under where the alien perched in the structure.

"There's another," she rasped, pointing. His head jerked to follow her motion and, like its brother, the alien squirmed between the limbs of the structure and thew itself onto him.

It clung to Runite's body, tail lashing but too close to be of use. Runite pried the alien loose and threw it - the alien skittered away on all fours, vanishing into the darkness between the seating bays.

Runite's shoulder cannon blared blue light over her as he fired after it. Sparks rained down on the distant seating bays in a shower. There came no squeal, no surge of yellow blood. He remained tense in the direction it had fled for a further few moments before standing straight again.

Nasira's body unwound so suddenly her arms stopped holding her up. Laying on her back, her chest heaved. Her mind replayed the scene with savage cruelty - the way the stars rippled across the alien's skull as it drew even with her own face. Instants. That was all it had been. If she'd been a second too slow in seeing it…if she'd been turned the wrong way upon pulling herself up…

She sat up, pressing the heels of her hands against her temples.

Two of them. Smaller than the one in the infirmary, but that meant there were at least three.

Runite clicked. She looked up to see Tresses and Siwili reentering the fuselage. A rapid conversation passed between them before they even reached each other. It ended with all three of them staring at the dead alien. The acid sacs on the side of its head were dimming, deflating with the rest of the blood as it pooled on the floor.

While they were distracted, Nasira picked herself up. Marcus and Edmund were still cowering at the edge of the seating bay. Edmund caught her hand as she passed. He held it between both of his own.

"You saved us," he said, his face white as a sheet.

The predators turned towards the humans. Nasira gently extracted her hand from Edmund's and put it on his arm instead. She didn't smile — she was thinking of how any officer of Adrara would accept gratitude: formally. Graciously.

"You're welcome."

Tresses conferred with Siwili, cocking her head in Nasira's direction. He glanced at her and then nodded.

Nasira ducked her head but found nowhere to look but her kill. She was far enough away to spare the acid eating the soles of her boots, but near enough to see the damage she'd wreaked on its skeletal body.

The neck had contorted almost immediately post-mortem, the skull wrenching backwards towards its spine. The arms and claws were still reaching, still intent on gutting her, even in death.

Nasira shivered and knelt to look at its face. Without eyes or any sort of expression, it could easily be faking death. She grabbed the knife and wrenched it free of the mouth. It fell closed almost gently. She gripped the spear and pried it from its ribcage. It popped out, its end coated in blood.

She was just debating how to clean it when Siwili approached her, his knife catching the light above and glinting from its place on his thigh. He surveyed her kill, then held his hand out for the knife she'd used to dispatch the alien. She passed it over and watched as he planted it on the knuckle of one of the alien's claws. The claw came loose, and he caught it in his palm. Still kneeling, he skimmed the point of the claw over the top of the foaming acid.

Deadly claw in hand, he gestured to the mark on the brow of his mask. Nasira's eyes went from it to the claw. When she hesitated, he pointed to Tresses and, more distant, Runite, who of course bore identical marks on their own masks.

They marked themselves with the blood of their kills? She was used to having to remain impartial — one could not bear every honor bestowed upon them. Her refusal was cut short by Tresses and Siwili laying a fist over their chests in the same congratulatory salute they'd used earlier. Runite moved behind them and then made the same motion, bowing his head to her.

She could think of no reason to deny them now - it seemed that for her to do what they suggested would afford her some kind of respect. The unison of their gesture made her feel want. She wanted to form an alliance with these predators the same way she wanted to be accepted as a peacekeeper in Adrara, as a representative for her species.

Nasira held onto the spear to steady herself, and then gave Siwili a curt nod, moving the fabric of her hijab aside so he had room to work. He leaned in and stopped. His free hand went up to her forehead, and between two fingers, he caught a lock of her hair where it had escaped the confines of her hijab. He followed its natural curl, coiling it around one talon before giving it a gentle, almost halting, tug.

Confused, she leaned back a bit, but with an excited rattle, Siwili dropped her hair and pulled something free from beneath his armor. It was a piece of twine fashioned into a necklace, with a fang riding between two metal bands. They looked like those that encircled the predators' hair. He held it out for her to see.

It shocked her when Siwili grabbed her arm and drew it to his middle so that she was touching him. His skin was hot and dry, with a pebbled texture. Beneath her hand, she felt it interrupted by rough scar tissue.

A child's voice came from his mask.

_"Alexa."_

Her eyes widened. When had this hulking predator encountered a human child?

She didn't know what to say, and when she didn't respond, he dropped her arm and made to push the fabric of her hijab up further.

Several things happened in the single instant following. Nasira's hand shot up to grasp Siwili's wrist, stopping him in his tracks. An enraged snarl sounded from Runite, who was suddenly between them, his forearm blocking Siwili's from moving any further. The bizarre triangle came to a standstill.

Tresses' head whipped around at the commotion. She started over to the three of them, but Siwili stepped back. He moved away, stopping to hand the claw over to Tresses. She barked a question at him. He ceased walking and held out a fist; Tresses let him draw his knuckles over her palm. He leaned into her, the foreheads of their masks resting against each other. Then he drew back and continued walking.

Tresses stared at Nasira, who adjusted her sweaty, nervous grip on the spear. She turned to Runite. She clicked a command at him, holding out the claw. He took it, and she left after Siwili.

Alone with him again, Nasira found the air pressing in around her, making it hard to draw breath. She fought the desire to wipe her palms on her clothes.

Silent, he took up the job Siwili had abandoned. Runite's talons tapped the side of her neck as he held her steady. He was remarkably careful, one finger curling in, causing the point of his talon to trail through the fabric of her hijab and over her skin.

She was so distracted by the sensation that she almost forgot what he meant to do - the touch of the acid-tipped claw between her eyebrows almost made her struggle away. She ignored the searing pain as it marked her skin, examining him as he worked to distract herself.

He gave his task his utmost concentration. As he tilted his head to follow the motion of the mark, his dreadlocks slid over his shoulders. With his hair tied back the way it was, he looked like a thoughtful artist adding the final decisive touches to a cherished masterpiece.

When he finished, he tucked the claw into his fist, but still laid the tip of his talon where her new mark ended. As he did, he also brushed the escaped lock of hair back under her hijab, then replaced it where it had fallen on her forehead. It was inexpertly done, for she could feel it already threatening to slip back out again, but she made no move to fix it. She made no move in any direction.

His talon hovered above the beads on the crown of her hijab and chittered in askance. She held a breath and inclined her head. His talons tapped the beads in the same way she habitually traced them. He must have seen her doing it earlier. Was that why he'd gotten so upset with Siwili for trying to touch them?

Finally, he stepped back, making a chuffing sound and shaking his shoulders. He turned away.

Nasira's hands twitched at her sides as she watched him go.

Marcus and Edmund were still watching. She touched the scar on her forehead, trying to tame the waves of adrenaline, of pride, as they crested within her.


	10. Rancor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rancor: Middle English
> 
> [noun]
> 
> bitter, rankling resentment or ill will; hatred; malice; hostility; spite.

 

* * *

The Cavalier's progression through the stars was unmarked by any indication of time or distance. They'd long since exited alliance space - their intended flight path had already been on the edge of familiar territory. Since changing directions, they'd been constantly accelerating into deeper unknowns. The pinpricks of light visible through the observation window of the Cavalier were all unsurveyed, whether they were planets or stars or other celestial objects.

It was almost comparable to the unease that had taken root in the black hallways of the ship itself. The fervor Nasira felt after killing the alien and receiving her mark had begun to wear down, leaving only the coldness of resignation.

It'd been nearly twelve hours since she'd seen the creature spawned from Prono but — and she hadn't thought about it at the time — there'd been at least one more alien at the time. The one that abducted Edmund was unquestionably a separate organism from the one she'd fought in the infirmary. But how had it reproduced so quickly?

Marcus looked uncomfortable when she voiced her concern. "Like I said. They reproduce by infecting things."

"Life forms?"

"Yes."

He nodded. She recalled fighting off the spidery thing as it sought to infect Edmund — the way it had skittered just out of light's reach, its skeletal fingers groping their way around her arm and its slick, brainstem tail choking the life from him.

"So where are these parasitoids coming from?"

He scowled. "They're lain in the form of an egg."

She bent down, blocking him with her arms so he had no choice but to look at her.

"We are in a very tenuous situation, if you haven't noticed. I'm tired of stripping these answers from you. If you're anything short of enthusiastic about sharing information with me, I won't hesitate to save myself the trouble of marching you to the airlock. I'll restrain you here and wait for your admirable specimens to come calling for their custodian."

Eyes burning, he said, "Contained in my checked luggage were two more eggs. One of the drones must have gone through it. That's how it happened so quickly. But they're fully capable of laying their own eggs once one metamorphoses."

So the alien she'd killed had come from one of the three members of the flight crew: Uicra, Ensla, or Buhbda. She looked down at its corpse; steam rose from the acid in wispy pillars.

"Metamorphoses? Into what?"

"A matron. A queen."

"How long does that take?"

"Without a queen already present, the process begins immediately after reaching adulthood. Normally, it takes a few days, but we engineered an advanced genetic line so they'd mature more quickly and therefore be studied more easily."

"How long?" she pressed.

Marcus hesitated. "Ten hours."

Nasira fell back, her extremities spiking with cold. So it had already happened. A rancor had buried itself somewhere within the bowels of the ship.

If the queen could lay her own eggs, that meant the number of aliens was parallel to the number of hosts they'd had access to — with the recent death of the spitter, there were now three aliens left, including the queen herself.

Acid hissed and popped, almost hitting their ankles. The sacs on the side of its head were nearly translucent now that the killing blood had vacated them. She squatted low, careful to avoid getting too close to the acid. She held out a hand but did not touch the sacs.

"What are you?" she murmured. Then, louder, "What kind of genetic variance do they display? Is it dependent on their queen and egg, or their host?"

"Both can be correct. This line had a deviant template encoded in its genes. Like an anomaly. We wanted to see to what degree we were able to manipulate their physical characteristics. A wild card, if you will. To help evolution along."

She scoffed. "To help evolution. And here I'd attributed your abysmal decision-making skills to ignorance but maybe I was wrong — what great power you must have to be able to pervert nature on a whim."

"I can't believe it," he simpered. "After so many hours, are we finally due for a theological debate?"

"No." She stood, wiping her fingers on her pants even though she'd not actually touched the alien. "Just color me impressed at the depths to which your intoxicating stupidity extends."

His jaw tightened.

She redirected the conversation, saying, "Will  _her eminence_  attack us?"

Marcus' face purpled but he had no choice but to answer.

"No. She won't leave her hive unless she fears there's no alternative. Procreation and the advancement of her army is her first priority. She'll send her warriors after us, surely."

"Warriors."

"The hive functions like a society, with a caste system. The queen and her honorable guard."

"But there are only two of them now."

"Then I guess we have little to worry about," he said.

* * *

Three aliens. A queen hidden somewhere in the ship. The other dissuaded (she hoped) from the fuselage by the presence of the predators. The last, a mystery.

She thought it safe to meander through the seating bays until she was out of earshot of Marcus and Edmund. The spear stayed at her side. Lain over her knees was her jacket. She let the newest tatters fall through her fingers as her eyes heated with tears.

Reaching up, she undid her beads and set them to the side, then unwound her hijab. Carefully smoothing the fabric over her lap, she traced the sleek ornamentation. The fabric was a dark, sleeping marine pool in the purpling dusk. Tears dropped onto its curves.

Nasira Lathan. An example of the best humanity had to offer. Peaceful. Capable. And yet not so.

She'd forsaken Adrara's moral creed for her own. She'd enacted not justice, but revenge on Marcus. Not because of the suffering he'd caused, but because she couldn't stand to hear a people insulted like she'd been all her life.

For who they were.

For how they lived.

By the very man who'd destroyed them and their right to defend themselves.

Even considering their truce, she'd snapped at Edmund, an innocent. A bystander. A boy her own age.

She'd threatened Marcus. She'd been prepared to actually carry out the deed.

As they sped into the furthest reaches of outer space, as the infestation spread, she was losing the battle. To selfishness. To question.

Her own self, spiraling into indiscretion, into failure, was not who she could trust to save them all.

* * *

The predators approached her shortly after, which she expected but nonetheless found herself unprepared for. Despite the revelation that some grander threat had situated itself in their midst, their conflict was drawing to a close. Marcus had survived for longer than they'd deemed favorable and by now they were raring to correct it.

She was not sure she'd care to stop them this time.

Siwili had recovered from whatever affliction with which he'd found himself overcome when he'd attempted to mark her. His necklace still hung loose around his neck where she could see it - she found it odd that this supposed trophy in particular was given such special treatment. It seemed it was one held in an esteem greater than those of the skulls he wore draped over his chest. The way he'd so eagerly held it out for her — had he expected her to recognize it?

She spoke before they could. "I understand why you destroyed the lifeboat. We can't let the infestation make land or give it an opportunity for new hosts."

The last officer of the flight crew restrained by resin. Knowing what awaited them after seeing their companions infected.

She did not think on it.

Tresses held out her arm and called forth her hologram. From her point of view, she saw Siwili stalk into a room. Tresses' vision swapped from infra-red to — surprising Nasira — visible light, and then to something she didn't recognize but that toggled the green alien eggs in vivid clarity. Her vision panned up the wall and, highlighted in the same green, was residue of the globules of resin that had encased Edmund. Tresses looked down into the eggs. Apart from dripping mucus yolk and pale albumen, they were empty.

"What?" Nasira asked. "Where are they?" She'd killed one, but Marcus said there'd been two that aliens had carried into their lair.

The two predators had gone to that place to find the remaining aliens. But even through the limited rendering of the hologram, she could feel the neglect hanging alongside the steaming humid air. The lair was abandoned.

"So where is the queen?"

Tresses showed the structure of the ship itself, scrolling through the different levels. Habitation, cargo, sanitation, atmospheric, engine, fuel chambers. She didn't know whether they were places to rule out, or whether Tresses was showing her that she had no idea.

"How are we going to find them?" Nasira asked.

None of them answered. Tresses looked up and away, scanning the air. Nasira's head swiveled around. Could she have detected another ambush?

Then the alarms went off, a great tear in the calm they'd become used to.

Nasira's clapped her hands over her ears as they pierced the air. Runite stepped towards her almost reflexively. Unperturbed by the commotion, Tresses dialed through the functions on her wrist computer.

Nasira tried to shout a question but couldn't hear herself over the cacophony — the alarms were not limited to the fuselage, but were going off all over the ship, creating a discordant tumult that made her eardrums pulse. Tresses found what she was looking for and held it out for Nasira to see.

She had scanned the vent nearest them. It looked mundane enough, but then she flipped through another set of vision enhancements to reveal a cloud of gas pouring forth from between the slats.

A pungent sharpness crowded her senses and she knew what had happened. The air purification must have failed, overproducing hazardous gases.

She cursed under her breath, but it was lost in the din. She had nothing to combat a gas leak, even if she knew where it had occurred. It seemed the predators did not have access to all the ship's functions — they were merely attuned to the status of the lifeboats because they wanted to uphold their quarantine. This leak was not among their concerns, so they'd have to find it some other way. Atmospheric was her best guess, but she'd need protective gear to even get close.

It was weak for now, but if it kept coming in quantities like Tresses had shown her, they'd soon be fighting for breath.

The nearest airlock was about a quarter of a mile away. The EVA equipment containers held bulky space suits like what she'd taken up to the forwarding array but she'd seen a few other variations as well. Maybe one of them would work — all she needed was a respirator and something that would spare her skin from direct contact.

Funny, she thought, to spend so many hours dodging the acid blood of the aliens only to find herself thwarted by something as simple, as insidious, as incorporeal as a gas in the air.


	11. Hiemal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiemal: latin
> 
> adjective
> 
> of or relating to winter; wintry.

 

* * *

The suit was rubbery, with micro bumps like gooseflesh. It conformed to her body like a second skin. A metal X encased the torso and wrapped around behind to hold a life support pack containing the respirator's filter, a charge pack, a parachute, and a scanner. It was an odd collection of items, but she barely noticed.

The body and helmet itself were inset with reflective panels designed to bounce heat from the wearer. It could withstand extraordinary temperatures, but Nasira took it because it was the easiest to work with. None of the others fit her human frame while remaining small enough to maneuver. She supposed this suit was suitable for work in the engine room, but by the looks of its interface and external equipment, it probably had a plethora of other purposes she had neither time nor care to discern.

What she did care to notice was a network of needle-thin tubes that spanned the entire body. They were hidden between the layers of the suit like veins beneath skin. She traced them back to their source — there were two bags near the back: one was flat and empty, but the other was filled with what looked like black gel.

Her eyes widened as she looked closer. The black was a sealant, meant to be distributed through the tubes to different parts of the suit. If the suit was punctured, the sealant would rush through the network to close the hole and prevent decompression. In the unforgiving clutches of space, it was a life-saving addition. The other bag gave no hints as to its purpose, but it had a larger tube connecting to the charge pack on the outside of the suit.

Nasira stripped to her underthings and then slipped into a full-body stocking that would go beneath the suit. She supposed it was to prevent chafing, but it also raised the temperature in her suit. She didn't know how to work the thermal regulator inside of it, so she left it alone and hoped she'd be warm enough.

The cap that housed her radio assembly was too tight-fitting for her hijab to go beneath it, so she unwound it and warred with herself over where to stow it. It wouldn't fit anywhere in the suit with her, so she had no choice but to fold it and set it on a bench beside the spear. She'd just have to come back for them later. The knife and the weapon from Prono's safe fit in a small internal pocket on the suit, so she took them along.

Nasira puffed air into the respirator to be sure it was operational. Her bio-readings turned green. She shook out her arms, readying herself.

She left the airlock's antechamber to meet Marcus, Edmund, and the predators. They would not be accompanying her to Atmospheric — she wasn't sure whether the predators would be affected by the gas, but she still needed someone to look after Marcus and Edmund while she was gone.

"Can't you just…flush it out?" Edmund asked. "You know, crack a window?"

Nasira looked at him. "Vent it?"

"Yeah, sure."

She shook her head. "It'd take much too long to anchor everything down, and then our breathable air would be vented as well. Atmospheric wouldn't have time to compensate before we all suffocated."

"Oh."

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm sure the trouble is just..." She shook her head. "Nothing. No time. I'll have it fixed. After that the purification systems will start functioning again."

Marcus spoke, surprising her. "We don't know whether xenomorphs are susceptible to chemical weapons. Never got very far in the tests. Just keep a watchful eye."

Nasira twisted the bearings on the gloves so they were sealed tightly and did not look his way as she spoke. "I'll keep it in mind."

Her heart buzzed with anticipation. Now that he'd voiced the possibility that she'd encounter aliens on her trek, she was much less inclined to leave her spear behind. She reached up to touch her hijab before remembering she was wearing her helmet.

"I should be back in about thirty minutes," she said. "If I'm not, check the readings on the airlock door. It'll tell you whether the room is still safe. If it's not, go inside. The air piped in should be clean."

"You want us to stand in the airlock?" His sneer was evident in his tone.

Nasira finished adjusting her gloves but leaned down to check "For your own safety."

She made to leave without another word but Marcus grabbed her arm. Tresses roared, grabbing a handful of his hair and wrenching his head back. Marcus choked on his next words as his air supply was cut off. He was forced to let go of her arm. Edmund stepped away and tried to make himself small.

Runite seemed unconcerned by this commotion. He was fiddling with his wrist computer. At his side, Siwili had his arms crossed over his chest. With the other predators intent on Marcus, who was still clawing at his straining throat, Runite bent lower so that Nasira could see his hologram.

It showed the outer casing of the ship, the lifeboat bay, and the engine room, but nothing else. She had been correct earlier — the predators had data only on factors relating to their primary objective: to contain the infestation.

She looked to the engine room, above the reactor chambers — it was highlighted the same way the lifeboat bay was. Did that mean the predators were indeed behind the unexpected thruster bursts that had rendered them, by all accounts, lost in space? If Marcus was telling the truth about the speed with which the aliens reproduced, she was certain they were better off far away from any other hosts. What about the forward array's failure, the reason they could not call for help?

Nasira looked to him for permission, uneasy. The last time she'd been so close to him, he'd been trying to kill her. Now, the temperature in her suit made her skin flush, but she was grateful that it provided at least an illusion of armor.

She touched one of the panels on his gauntlet. It worked like a trackpad, allowing her to scroll through the different levels of the ship. She worked her way up to the hull while he continued to hold his arm out patiently.

Where she expected to see the forward array, there was something else. A new structure that was sleek and curving, metal arms bolted to the hull of the Cavalier. A ship. The predator's ship. Beneath it, she could just barely make out the outline of the forward array. It was intact, probably just sheltered under the body of the predator ship.

She returned to the inner display of the Cavalier, searching until she found what she was looking for. She pointed at Atmospheric where it appeared on the hologram.

"Here," she said. "That's the problem."

Runite tapped a command, marking the designated area so he could recall its location if he so needed. When he finished, she realized her hand was resting on his armguard, so she hastily snatched it back, looking back towards Marcus.

Tresses released him. He gasped and massaged his throat. Despite his obvious pain, he managed to speak again. "I'm just warning you of what might happen."

Nasira stopped wringing her fingers and surveyed him, waiting for the quirk in his features that'd show what he truly thought, but none came.

She looked away, remembering herself, and made due with a short nod.

* * *

Invisible as it was, it was easy to imagine the killing gas that hung in a miasma around her. The air she breathed was pure, but the suit's warning tones reminded her every second of the danger the ship was in. If a valve on her suit broke, the gas would rush to conquer her.

She gulped huge breaths of air from her lifeline respirator. It seemed that recently she was just exchanging one type of fear for another. But now she was alone. No Buhbda to guide her, no predators at her back. Alone. Tiny icicles of sweat froze on her spine as though she was accompanied by a wraith in her suit.

As she descended further into the ship, the curving pipes that made up the walls seemed to slither atop each other. A few of them hissed in a feeble attempt to compensate for the lack of safe air. They ought to be dispersing a concoction that could combat the toxins, but they weren't working fast enough for it to make any difference.

Atmospheric was a series of chambers brimming with enormous pumps and pipes. Accordions expanded and truncated themselves, a spume of steam issuing forth with every repetition. She could hear them working only faintly through her suit — groaning with titanic effort, they sounded like a behemoth turning over in its lair as they breathed more of the toxic gas into the ship's atmosphere.

One of the consoles interfaces showed a layer of warnings, which she swiped aside so she could check the readouts. The levels were color-coded according to the composition of the present gases. The amount of oxygen, of carbon dioxide, of nitrogen was all normal. But one level skyrocketed above the rest, a flashing indicator notifying her that it was above the safety line. She examined it — the toxic gas appeared to be a combination of trace gases in such tiny amounts that Atmospheric couldn't even detect their origins. Alone, they ought to be benign, but when reacting with one another they produced disastrous effects.

If she came into direct contact with it, her skin would burn first, stripped raw like she'd been submerged in boiling water. Then her lungs would be cut to ribbons. The moisture in her eyes would ignite, blinding her. The hard matter in her body — her bones, her molars — would dissolve to mush. Her corpse would be liquefied in an hour, leaving the suit behind like a husk.

She said a silent prayer of gratitude to whoever had engineered her respirator.

The separate compartments of the ship were all marked according to the levels within them — it seemed that only the fuselage and habitation corridors had been flooded with the direct source of toxicity, but all the rest had been gradually rising as the gas spilled over. They would've been dead in the fuselage in mere minutes, but if they'd fled to the bridge, the lifeboats, the hydration plant, or sanitation department, they could have survived for hours longer. The central bunker, with its own life support, had never been in danger like they were.

She returned her attention to the controls: Could it be so simple? Her interactions with the ship so far had been fanciful convenience with a few instances of guesswork, but she'd managed to hold her own as the odds mounted against her. She couldn't help but to live a brief fantasy in which she was aided by someone who knew better than her — if only she'd had time to let Buhbda tell her how to fix the forwarding array. She needn't have ever challenged the aliens. She needn't have ever met the predators.

Holding a breath as though it was her last, she dragged the toxicity level beneath the safety line. It slid down easily, wavering for a moment and then holding true.

Relief stung her short gasp. Had it worked?

She dragged the oxygen levels up to a hundred percent. A few minutes for it to disperse and it'd overcome the toxins. Normally she would not dare to thwart with the atmospheric composition, but the only ones who had to breathe it at the moment were humans, and the predators had not shown any discomfort so far. Nearly all the species she knew breathed some concentration of oxygen, but not all could survive such a potent amount.

On the console, the air quality read normal. The alarms ceased, the warning tones in her suit slowed and stopped. Nasira watched as the visual display showing the different sectors of the ship turned green one by one.

The ship was settling down again. There was, of course, no movement anywhere except for those she'd left behind in the airlock and central bunker. And wherever the aliens had found sanctuary.

She hovered over the controls. If she so chose, she could block off each individual chamber in the ship and flood it with gas. It might help them to draw out the aliens, or even kill them. It almost comforted her to know they were no longer in the luggage bay, as it had a direct line to the fuselage via the baggage chute. But that meant she had no idea where they were. But she recalled the shine of light off of their exoskeletons — she'd never seen such a powerful natural defense. It was likely that it wouldn't even work on them, and serve only to damage the wiring in the ship, which would solve nothing and confront her with an electrical problem.

She didn't know if the aliens could muster another attack. Their numbers were tiny, especially with the queen guarding their seized territory. Even the ambush in the fuselage had seemed halfhearted, as though they'd only intended to test their opposition. She'd killed one, and Runite had sent the other skittering, so she doubted they'd strike again.

She canceled the order to block specific chambers and instead wired a notifications uplink into her helmet's radio assembly. If the levels began climbing towards an unsafe amount again, she'd receive a preemptive warning.

The hallway when she left was choked with white gas. The purification process was overtaxing its capabilities, and her suit told her the temperature of the ship had risen to a hundred degrees. Coolant cascaded from the pipes and swirled at her feet as she walked.

Now on the other side of it, the incident seemed superficial. It had taken her a few minutes to suit up and make her way to Atmospheric, but she'd corrected it with minimal effort. Had it been mere deadly coincidence that the trace gases struck each other and reacted the way they had?

Motion caught her eye further down the corridor. Something nosed around the corner with tantalizing slowness.

Coolant enfolded itself around the her suspended foot, the step too dangerous to take.

The alien's skull was semi-translucent, like bones forged from crystalline mineral. It edged further still, turning to face her. The wraith in her suit plucked at her like she was an instrument, dragged its icy tongue down the curve of her shoulder, beckoning. It seduced her to move, whispering lascivious promises in exchange for her to move forth, to offer the alien's maw her blood.

Nasira's knees lowered her to the ground of their own accord. Her fingers fumbled for a weapon within her suit, but they were weighted by clumsiness.

The alien's lips peeled away to reveal slavering fangs. Saliva spattered the ground. Coolant gas hung in the air around them; they were the only living things in their own hiemal purgatory.

A snarl spilled past its teeth, but she had no way of knowing whether it had spotted her. Its head bobbed and she knew its wiry body would follow it into view. It would charge her, pin her arms with its forelegs, lower its evil visage flush with her face. It would punch its jaw through her skull and her blood would mingle with its next shriek of triumph.

What little of the alien she could see narrowed as it withdrew from her hallway.

The air stolen from her lungs returned in a rush. She crept to the corner and peeked around — about twenty feet away, the alien's tail stirred the coolant gas as it strode back the way it had come. It seemed not to have the slightest care that it was pursued. It had not seen her after all.

Nasira removed her weapon from the inside of her suit and held it ready in front of her. Steeling herself, she tightly wrapped her fingers around the grip and followed.

* * *

It was easy to track, almost disturbingly so. She passed beneath several ventilation access conduits but the creature never attempted to traverse any of them. She watched its spear-tip tail whip around a corner before she made to move after it down a narrow electrical tunnel.

Shaped like a zipper, the walls jut out at even intervals so she could only just squeeze through. Every ten feet, there was a ten-foot slope that led to a churning fan.

She searched for possible access points — they were in a remote part of the ship, and she suspected the alien would return to its hive, perhaps by slipping between the blades of one of the stationary fans.

Ahead of her, the alien had compacted itself enough to wriggle through the tunnel as well, like a snake in an engine. The spines on its back jerked to and fro to avoid the walls. It moved like an arachnid, impressively working its body through a space it seemed too large to fit. But observing this marvel did not prepare her to see it twist on itself as though suddenly boneless —

— and face her.

She'd made no sound. It had not possibly been able to see behind itself in such a space. Sixty feet of cramped hallway and a tangled forest of electrical wire between them.

Nothing at all.

It charged towards her, the shriek of claws and spikes in the walls, the frying and smoking of wires ripped from their sockets. It barreled through the obstacles as though they were not there, intent upon her, advancing with the rabid scrambling of a madthing.

"Shit," she said, forgetting herself. "Shit, shit, shit."

The plates on her suit scraped the walls as she backpedaled with no regard for what was behind her. She didn't dare turn. Knowing that she'd find out how fast the alien was capable of pursuit only by the sensation of its talons on her back, of her neck between its jaws, and the desperate prayer that it all be ended soon.


	12. Boiler

**Chapter Twelve:**  Boiler

* * *

The ebony skeleton came towards her in a flailing, seething mass. She kept her front to it, raising her weapon. Shaking too hard to aim, trusting the confines of the tunnel, she fired three quick shots.

The alien lowered its cranium like a shield, the projectiles pinging off of it. The skull rammed into her middle with such force her breath whooshed from her lungs and she flew backwards, cracking the back of her helmet on the ground. Its weight slinked up onto her body, pinning her. She had it around the throat, holding it off of her, yelling with effort.

Hot, stinking saliva slopped onto her visor; its rancid breath coming through her helmet's filter was stale death. The bubble of space encasing its mouth and her face was all she was certain still existed. Its high pitched shrieking could split diamond, shave flakes from her bones. It threw itself back and forth, fighting to get past her defenses — her elbows bent and its inner jaw dipped nearly to her face, snapping audibly.

She dared to release it with one hand and grope along the floor. Seizing the weapon, she jammed it into the grey bone of its jaw, deep in its mouth.

A single shot and the resultant flash fractured the midst of their struggle. Sound collapsed around her as her ears rang, the air turning cotton and slow. Her blood roared in her veins; she could feel its progression through her body. There was nothing but the distant sound of her sharp breaths and the alien's screams.

The alien tried to reel back but she held fast to the jaw, wrenching it to the side. Already partially unhinged, it tore free of the mouth. Blood cascaded from the wound but she'd already thrown herself down the slope leading to one of the fans. One of its spasming claws raked the visor of her helmet as she fell away, the sound dull to her drumming ears.

A foot jammed itself against the frame of the fan to keep her from sliding in. She leveled the weapon on the thrashing alien. She fired into its chest, its hips, its ribs, shouting as each impacted it with a gush of spraying blood. The shots were short pops, nothing more, and the alien's cries were fading into oblivion.

Her toes squeaked against the slope. Beneath her, the fan turned the air inflexible, chopping at it like it was solid. Nasira hauled herself up, kicking until she was back in the hallway. Everything was sluggish; her limbs were leaden as though she'd tramped through twenty miles of tar.

The alien still lived, but in slow, ailing motions. Nasira fumbled to retrieve her knife and held it beneath the grip of her weapon, watching the creature for signs of recovery.

Its oblong skull tilted in her direction, blood pouring from the dark maw. She held herself strong, unsure if it would understand that she had staked triumph over it — it still sought to rip her to shreds but couldn't even manage to get to its feet. She kept her distance, watching the pulsing throb in the ropey pipes of its throat and trying to determine where best to bury her blade.

The alien gave a great spasm of preagonal suffering. The bulge in its throat expanded so rapidly she thought it would burst. Its thin arms and legs were also animated beneath its black flesh, like live currents raced through them. The body arced as though it meant to lift off the floor, ballooning to double its previous size.

Realization clicked in her mind a bare instant before it happened. She turned, her shoulder slamming into the wall and nearly wrenching it from the socket, throwing herself down.

The alien exploded, chunks of exoskeleton striking the walls. Acid followed, stripping wire covers so that they spit sparks. They cascaded over Nasira's sheltered form, doing her no harm as the plates on her suit forced them to bounce off and their glow to die on the scorched floor.

Nasira stirred, uncovering her neck. By some luck, she'd been spared from the acid. She rolled over and scrambled away, but the alien was nothing more than a steaming mass upon the floor. The severed inner jaw was unharmed — she bent to pick it up. Gel-like saliva dripped from it almost comically.

Nasira put her foot on what was left of the alien's skull and turned it over. The mealy contents of its brain were already mostly dissolved, and the metal grating of the floor was replaced by a recess in which the rest dripped.

It had been a trap. The alien knew she'd been following it. It had lured her closer, lulled her into believing she'd not been detected. It had let her think that it would reveal the location of the nest, only to corner her in the narrow hallway where it had thought she'd had no hope of surviving. Maybe it hadn't intended to lose itself in the process, but the intelligence it must have possessed to formulate such a strategy sent a chill through her.

She pocketed the inner jaw, thinking it a fine prize to present to Marcus — perhaps as thanks for his involvement in creating his genetic wild card that allowed an alien to boil its corpse until it became a living bomb.

Before she'd taken more than two steps, her back erupted in pain. She staggered and bent double as though to mitigate it, but it had no effect whatsoever. Unclasping her arms from around herself, she reached to feel the charred edges of the panels on the back of her suit.

Acid had bathed her when the alien detonated — it had taken time to get through the suit, but there it was after all.

She tried to force the material beneath her suit away from her skin, to halt its progression, but it'd already done its worst on her. She could do nothing but ride out the agony as it threatened to unhinge her.

Pressing onward to the hive was now out of the question, the tiniest flex of her shoulder driving her to her knees. She turned, the tears that beaded her eyes distorting her view of the hall in front of her, and felt her way back to familiarity.

* * *

Nasira encountered a cloaked predator before she'd even made it back to the airlock chamber. The unidentifiable mass was low to the ground so she couldn't guess who it was. It almost looked as though it was stalking her, like she wasn't meant to see it, but when she looked its way it had no choice but to move in on her. She hurried to straighten up, ignore the fuzzy red heat that exploded behind her eyes. She could manage it for mere seconds only. Not long enough for the predator to overlook it.

Electrical spots swarmed over the predator's form as it dropped its cloak — it was Runite that stood before her. He was at her side in an instant, starting to lift the arm of the afflicted shoulder to test its movement.

* * *

Nasira was next aware of a thin layer of dust on the floor, which was mysteriously nearer to her face than she remembered. She blinked once, and pain tinged her now-bruised cheekbone. She had the presence of mind not to stand up, looking around as best she could without hurting herself further. She hadn't moved from where she'd met up with Runite except, it seemed, to pass out. Taloned feet were before her; Nasira looked up to find that the two male predators had stepped back to allow Tresses forth. Her icy gaze cut a thorough examination over Nasira. Heat licked up her back, not from her injury, but from embarrassment.

Tresses knelt, her enormous height barely halving. In her hand was a cylinder with a needle point thick enough to make Nasira try to squirm away.

"Wait," she said. Tresses paid her no heed, sinking the point into the crook of Nasira's arm.

Pain registered, enormous, innumerable, indescribable. Her eyes swam, a scream ripping through her throat, turning it to fire, stripping it raw. Sight left her, though she sensed the press of air on her eyes that told her they were still open. Seeking an harbor that would keep her from being washed away by the tempest of purpling agony, she pressed her forehead to the floor, begging the beginning and end of the cosmos that it stop, stop, stop.

All at once she was spared, not a single sensation left behind. She'd lost reception to her muscles, and when she spoke, she could barely put two thoughts together.

"Hey," she said, speech clumsy in her mouth. "What'd you — what's —"

A dull ache under her elbows as she boosted herself up. Her eyes rolled up in her head. She wrenched them back under her control — squinting, heated, flooding, but seeing, which was all she required of them. Her back was a battlefield of melted heatsuit where it met a sea of angry red flesh. Seamless, the transition was. The material of the suit and the inner sleeve beneath had melted into her skin and cooled there, bonding the two in a grotesque patchwork.

A mewl of defeat left her upon seeing the damage. Her vision streaked again.

Tresses pried two plates apart as though she were splitting a ribcage — a task of which she seemed fully capable — and tossed them to the side. Nasira felt only the motion, not the jar of pain she should've. Everything south of her neck was as though it was being tugged loose by hooks, which should have disturbed her but the distance she'd imposed on her thoughts kept her safe from such things. If she allowed herself to think on it, she didn't think she'd be able to handle the necessary procedure.

Tresses moved in a circle around the afflicted area until the heatsuit was in pieces. The inner sleeve was next, cut and then pushed back. The world was swaying gently, but she had not forgotten the presence of the other predators.

She groped around for one of the damaged heatsuit panels and hurled it at Runite and Siwili. Lying on her belly turned her aim poor. The panel spiked into the floor after a low arc and slid the rest of the way to their feet, but it served its purpose. Harnessing as much composure as she could, she thought she'd maybe managed the word, "Out!"

Runite made an offended sound. Tresses paused her work on Nasira and pointed towards the door of the fuselage. Siwili rattled and turned back. Runite's shoulders were set, tense, as though he meant to disobey. But he had no choice. After long moments, he wrenched himself around in a deliberate show of rebellion. Relief washed over Nasira as they vanished back into the fuselage.

It was short lived. The melted material parted from her skin millimeters at a time. The peel of them separating was enough to drive her teeth together, but she could feel that Tresses wasn't trying to cause her any undue strain. More curious was the thrum of a purr in her chest. It was not quite feline — it had too much of a chatter to it — but Nasira could tell it was for her benefit.

The ragged material of the suit and inner sleeve dropped in front of her. Nasira's gorge rose as she looked at the flecks of skin that had come with it. She'd seen acid burns before, and the mere thought of one transforming her own skin made her stomach churn. The afflicted area was probably uneven, deep and craggy in some places but hardly pink in others. The ugly pucker was visible over her shoulder, but the worst of it was set too deep into the skin for her to see. She bit her lip so hard it threatened to bleed. She'd never known hurt like this.

Lying still, she let Tresses continue. None of what she did next was worse than actually removing the material, but Nasira kept her fingers clawed against the floor, curling them when she flinched.

After what seemed like hours, Tresses stood and gestured for Nasira to do the same. She tottered to the side almost immediately upon finding her feet. She had to catch herself on the wall and then lean against it as dizziness assailed her. She suspected whatever Tresses had given her had had some sort of inebriating effect on her, or that it was just too strong for human use.

Tresses shot her a look and Nasira, worrying it was one of impatience, hurried to regain her balance.

She was still wearing half of the inner sleeve around her legs, but the rest had been discarded. Her torso was covered by wrappings that had only just been missed by the acid. After rummaging through the inner pocket of the destroyed heatsuit and regaining her possessions, she turned and started towards the airlock.

 


	13. Trophy

As she made her way down the hall, the two male predators reappeared, having deemed it safe. Siwili approached Tresses, but Runite watched, head tilted, as Nasira limped away. Frustration arose in her as he drew parallel with her in a few short strides. She still wore her hair tucked into the suit's cap, but the remains of the inner sleeve and stocking were, technically speaking, underwear. She was a mess — she would've never let anyone see her in this state normally.

The situation worsened when she nearly toppled again. Runite dragged her back upright by her elbow, and she had to shake him off even after she'd found her composure.

"Stop," she mumbled, thinking that the sibilant in the word had perhaps gone on for too long. She made up for it by rushing her next few words so that no one who happened to be listening became bored by gaps between them. "Icanwalk."

A few more paces proved her wrong. She reached out for a handhold that was not there until Runite came forward again, one fist encircling her forearm and the other guiding her waist, careful to avoid the acid burn.

Adrenaline cleared her head as their contact sent buzzing up her spine.

"Thanks," she muttered, suddenly wishing her mind was cloudy again.

He helped her to the airlock chamber. The room was empty. Marcus and Edmund must have returned to the fuselage with the predators when she'd fixed the gas leak.

Nasira felt Runite's eyes lower on her. She held the weapon and knife in one hand and the inner jaw in another — it was the jaw that had attracted his attention.

She held it out. He examined the severed edge where the bullet had blown through it, allowing her to wrench it free. While he was distracted, she stepped closer to him and slid the knife she'd used to kill the spitter into the sheath on his thigh. His head drew back as he looked down at her.

"Your companion — he had his knife. This is yours."

Siwili had handed her the knife as Runite watched. He'd kept his gaze on her and Edmund until she'd accepted it and tucked it into her holster. She'd been using two of his weapons: the knife and the spear. He'd fended off the alien in the fuselage even after being caught off guard, but she wondered if the claw marks he'd sustained were because he'd had no immediate weapon to use against it.

Leaving him with the knife and the inner jaw, Nasira moved further into the chamber to sort herself. She avoided glimpsing her reflection in the glass, pulling off the cap that went beneath her helmet and shimmying the rest of the way out of the stocking.

Moisture sheathed her from head to toe — much of it from exertion, some of it left from the suit's thermal regulation, which had only just saved her from heatstroke. She worked her fingers through her hair, wringing it out. In one of the lockers was a towel that she used to dry it the rest of the way, then she passed it over her skin, careful to avoid her back. Her muscles relaxed as she massaged away black liquid. The sealant in the suit had tried to fill the areas devastated by acid, but had had no effect. Shallow scrapes from the spitter's ambush marred her legs. She pulled her pants on over them, hissing to distract herself. The olive t-shirt she normally wore beneath her uniform's coat was still on the bench, so she pulled it over her head. She donned her hijab and pinned the beads into place.

As she worked, her back twinged, and she could avoid the draw of the mirrors no more. Resigning herself, she opened the door of the case and stood before the mirror. The flat muscles of her abdomen pulled taut the t-shirt, but it was not so tight that it aggravated the burn on her back. She turned and peeled the bottom up so she could see.

It was near her side, just below her hip, and swept upward so it nearly reached the bottom of her shoulder blade. As she'd thought, it was like looking at a trench carved into the flesh. The deepest parts were a dark red where it burned down to unveil muscle. The edges were a pale, moist blister. There was a clear coating over it from whatever Tresses had applied. The suit had been resistant enough to the acid that the wound wasn't deep, but if luck had not been with her, the acid would've reached much more of her. She thought of her spine, missed by inches, and so near the surface of her skin.

She bit back a sniffle and dropped the fabric. She had to hunt down one of her boots, then lean against the wall to tug it on. Her legs weakened, carrying her to the floor. She braced her shoulder against the wall so she didn't go over sideways, managing a sitting position. Her head nodded toward her chest and she let whatever Tresses' had given her close her eyes.

* * *

Her first worry upon waking was that her position would send a jolt through the injury on her back. But sleep, it seemed, had been generous — she was leaning away from the wall on her afflicted side. She'd fallen asleep with only one boot on, the other in her hand, and with a leg tucked up to her body. Satisfied that she was safe from damaging her back, she made to rest her head on her knee.

Before her eyes shut again, she saw Runite in front of her. She didn't stand, too tired to care that he'd been waiting on her as she'd accidentally slept. No growl left him, though, and he held something in one hand that he offered her.

Nasira did not make any great effort to move closer. An impatient rattle left him. Instead of leaning down, he took the space beside her, dropping easily onto his haunches and then sitting.

She didn't have time to think this unusual before he opened his fist and showed her what he'd meant to. In his palm was the pearly fang of the spitting alien she'd slain, from the looks of it the only one left intact by the knife she'd hurled into its maw. The tip was chipped, but it remained a handsome artifact.

Runite caught her chin and slipped his talons up to the side of her face, just beneath the edge of her hijab. He held her still while, with his thumb, he traced the mark on her brow.

Though not altogether discomfited by their closeness, she thought about leaning away. She didn't sense any of the malice that she had been so wary of when he was unfamiliar to her, so she remained where she was.

He offered her the fang again. She took it to appease him, holding it between two fingers, testing its shape. It was translucent and curving, about the size of her bent thumb. Nodding her appreciation, she made to give it back. He interrupted her with a growl of protest and pushed it at her, insistent. He indicated the string of similar trophies hung around his neck. Her acknowledgment was brief, for she did not know what to say, but he took her hand and brought it under them so they sifted through her fingers like seashells. Her gaze was fixed on his mask for a long moment, then she dropped it to examine the jewelry.

Most of them looked similar to the fang he'd recovered for her, but some had a brighter ivory cast to them. One was decidedly feline, secured to a cross of two sticks with a raven-colored feather wrapped around it. It looked like a true talisman. Had he done it himself?

Runite tapped her hand, still holding the fang. He dipped his head, and a coarse voice came from him, carried by the same rattle she'd become used to.

_"_ _Good."_

Her eyes widened as he spoke. So he was capable of articulating a human language. In the same rasp, he said another word, one that was unknown to her. Then he repeated himself so she could understand.

He was offering her a translation.

She repeated his word haltingly, though the pronunciation was easy enough.  _"Set,"_  she said. "Good."

He nodded, ringed dreadlocks tinkling.  _"Set thei-de."_

She eagerly awaited his translation, sitting up straighter, leaning in closer, untroubled that it was now she closing the distance between them.

 _"_ _Set thei-de,"_  she repeated. "Tell me."

 _"_ _Set thei-de,"_  he said in the same slow rattle.  _"Good kill."_

Congratulating her with his language and her own so that she understood.

Her heart swelled with pride. This was what she knew: learning to be accepted by all manner of different kinds of life. They'd shared with her their mark, their weapons, their trust, their language. It was only fair that she return it.

She laid a hand over her heart. "Nasira."

 _"_ _Nasira."_ Her name started off a deep rumbling and was followed by a trill. He held his own out as though to lay it over hers, but then pulled back.

She showed no such reservations, him having already invited her once to touch the trophies laid across his chest, but made herself go slowly enough that he could stop her if he wished. He didn't — she felt the thundering of his heart, different from her own, a waltz interwoven with the beats.

"You," she said. She pointed to herself again. "Nasira."

He hesitated for long moments, then shook his head and looked to the fang, for a long time nearly forgotten between them. Her excitement dimmed; he would not tell her his name? But then she forced herself to remember that names meant different things to different cultures. She knew of several ethnic groups that did not reveal their name to any but a lifelong companion.

He produced a length of wire from his belt and took the fang from her. He demonstrated how he fed the wire through the natural cavity in the fang and then tied it off. He held it up for her, his question apparent. Where would she display it?

Nasira let him tighten it around her wrist, then tweezed it between two fingers to ran the cruel point over the delicate skin there, reveling in the thought that it was under her control now, and would not harm her despite its sharpness.

"Thank you," she said.

He chittered, a higher sound than she'd ever heard from him. She turned her attention back to the fang, continuing to draw it over the blue veins where they stood out from her skin. She did it until she felt fatigue touch her again. Dropping the fang so it hung from the bracelet, she leaned her head to the side, wincing at the strain on her neck.

Runite moved closer and took out the knife she'd given him. He tested the sharpness of it. His arm closest to her was still as he favored his other to manipulate the knife. He didn't acknowledge her after that, leaving the invitation open.

She took a deep breath and leaned her head against his arm. It was in this position that she fell asleep more easily than she had in days.


	14. Challenge

Groggily was the way she broke the skin of sleep. Her face buzzed and her extremities tingled under the effects of the leftover injection. The entire left side of her body felt as though it was pressed to a furnace. Had she had a reaction to the alien medicine? Only when she forced herself to straighten did the effect diminish. Confused, wiping her eyes, she sought the source, her vision trailing over the wall to dark, mottled flesh.

Nasira scrambled to her feet, her face igniting, a hurried apology already taking shape on her lips. The outburst only served to intensify the effects of whatever medicine was still left in her system, and she nearly lost her balance.

It appeared that Runite had long since finished his work with the knives and had been sitting rigid. Though little could've roused her from the induced slumber, he had taken efforts not to move so as not to disturb her. Even after, it seemed, she'd slipped further down the wall until her entire weight had joined that of her head to rest against him.

Now, in the wake of her outburst, he only slowly moved to look up at her.

She kept a hand on her hip as she caught her breath. As her body cooled again, she realized one of her feet was still bare. The boot was overturned where she'd left it — its position hearkened a testament to how close she'd actually been to him — and she snatched it up before retreating again, turning her back as his mask tracked her.

Embarrassment still licking at her, she tugged her boot on without looking at him. Behind her, he rose, the smoothness of the motion enabling him to be virtually soundless. His hand fell onto her shoulder and turned her back. Mask tilted, a rumbling expanding between them, he seemed to search for the words.

They came in a gruff admission; it was clear he was struggling. "Return…to…" — a snarl of displeasure at the strain it caused him — "Return."

His hand still heavy on her shoulder, she nodded. "Return. Yes, we will. Wait a minute, please."

Clearing her throat, she shook herself out, disallowing any further lapse of composure. She'd never had cause to shy away from physical contact. To some cultures, it was as vital to communication as sustenance was to living. He hadn't seemed offended or repulsed by her mistake, and he had seemed to offer her the initial favor. She herself had never measured the weight of the value she held for physical contact, and had been neither comforted nor discomforted by it until now.

She moved to the EVA case and stepped inside, quietly relieved at the illusion of distance it created. The contents of the case had been marked down by one, the ruined heat suit still lying in pieces where Tresses had disassembled it. Pushing past its twins, she searched for an alternative. She'd nearly hit the back of the case before coming to the bulky EVA space suit she'd used to get to the forward array.

Nasira experimented with the flex of the armor vest from where it was situated around the torso of the EVA suit, taking the edges and bending them in and out. The armor vest was meant to hold a life support pack and provide structure for the suit, but when she knocked her knuckles against it, she had to admit it was sturdy. It consisted of two plates that went on the front and back, and was adjustable with the straps connecting them on the sides.

She removed it from the EVA suit and lifted her shirt. The injury had already been wrapped with gauze and padding, so she cinched the armor vest over the top of it and tested to make sure it was snug. When she pulled her shirt down over top of it, there was just the barest outline of the vest beneath.

No matter which way she turned, she felt no strain. When she pushed down on her back over the injury, there was nothing but pressure. Whether it was because of the injection Tresses had given her or because the armor vest was effective she didn't know. But she would take it.

Runite was waiting for her at the exit — she made to walk past him, but before she could, the hilt of the knife he'd been sharpening pressed into her hand; her fingers automatically curled around it. His knuckles brushed the mark on her forehead before fisting over his chest again.

* * *

As they made to reenter the fuselage, Runite took Nasira's elbow. She looked to him, eyebrows cinching, but the slate eyes of his mask were unreadable.

Through the door he pulled her, then continued on through the many seating bays. His pace was too quick for her to match easily, and he was holding her elbow too high to be comfortable.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but he didn't so much as glance down as he continued to forcibly march her towards the two larger predators, whose heads rose high above any of the seats. Nearby were the two humans — she wrenched her arm out of Runite's grasp before either of them noticed, and stepped away when he whipped around to stare at her. She approached the predators before he could attempt retribution.

When she got close, Siwili nodded at Tresses and peeled off, broad shoulders squared as he hurried away. Even more confused than she'd been before, she looked to Tresses for an explanation.

Gold glinted off of Tresses' mask in tiny showers as it tipped down to look at her. With the same low purring as from before, she rotated her talon to question the state of the acid burn on Nasira's back.

"I'm fine," Nasira said, her cupped hand resting over her heart in her familiar salute of gratitude. "Thank you for what you did for me."

Tresses didn't seem satisfied by her words alone, so Nasira allowed the grip on her arm to twist her until her back was to the huntress. Tresses made no effort to lift her shirt to inspect the injury, merely observing it with her mask tilted. She released her after a few moments.

The purring had stopped, leaving a thoughtful grumble in its place. She looked over Nasira's head at Runite.

The conversation that passed between them was made up of the same rough tones with which Runite had spoken to her — though the short barking commands and clicks that Tresses had used on her companions hinted at her true voice, they did nothing to prepare Nasira for the truth of the thing itself. Tresses was nothing that Nasira had ever heard before, something she did not know could belong to any singular life form — but if ever there was a specimen for such strident tones, it was the huntress before her. Her voice was the cold dignity of a noble; the burning, exquisite light of a star both imperious and beneficent.

So awed was Nasira by the revelation that was Tresses' voice did she almost forget to listen to what they said. She heard words she thought were easily repeatable, so she filed them away to inquire about later.

When Tresses finished speaking, Runite stiffened. His hands curled into fists at his side. When he spoke again, it was clear that he was attempting to measure himself respectfully against her. He could not retort, for she was his better, but whatever she had said had been to his displeasure.

Tresses' answering tone gave Nasira the impression that she was not responding to what he said but choosing to debase it by ignoring it. She gave a short, sharp command at him and then inclined her head towards Nasira, who fought the urge to take a step back.

Runite looked from Tresses to her and back to Tresses in rapid succession — Nasira frowned, not knowing how to interpret their actions. Had Tresses referred to her?

Runite barked a question at Tresses, but she tipped up her chin, a clear indication that she would not repeat herself. Runite's gaze again swapped between the two of them. He growled a low series of protests, but Tresses remained stony. Shock wove through Nasira. Standing almost a head and a half shorter, his frame bulkier but simultaneously diminutive against hers, he would press Tresses as far and as long as he had?

His next set of grievances was for Nasira. Bristling, his banded dreadlocks almost buzzed with his static ire; he stabbed a talon at Nasira and snarled, the animalistic sound causing Nasira to worry that he was crossing some sort of line. As he did, he spat one word with particular vehemence — it was more difficult than the ones she'd heard so far, but she shaped it in her mind, committing it to memory nonetheless.

A brief silence followed his testament before what sounded like the abrupt chattering of a laugh loosed itself from Tresses. In her clear, ringing tones, she said a single word: an inquiry. Runite jerked back, making an indignant sound. He replied with an equally prompt response: a denial.

With her laughter, Tresses shifted her weight so she no longer looked as imposing. It did not stop Nasira from starting as the large predator clapped her hand down on Nasira's shoulder, shaking it. Tresses withdrew it after a moment and left, still laughing the same laugh.

Runite shook with rage. Nasira tried to voice a question but he stormed away before she could open her mouth, leaving her alone in the center of the fuselage.

* * *

Attached to the fuselage was a steward workspace lined with packaged meals and appliances for their preparation. It was nothing like what could be found on the higher habitation levels, but it served to fill their stomachs. Nasira handed a set of meals to Marcus and Edmund. She had no idea how long it had been since any of them had eaten, but she had not felt even the pain of hunger before it had advanced into ripping weakness by way of reminder - and even that had been long quelled by the adrenaline of their struggles. Neither Edmund nor Marcus had complained of hunger or thirst, so it had slipped her mind entirely.

As it was, she had no appetite to speak of, but forced herself to finish the ration before she could decide otherwise.

Edmund looked covertly around for the predators, who were absent from view, then nibbled his own ration.

More important was for her to force water into her system, so she coached herself through downing the sweet, metallic tang of it. Her stomach felt like it was pinched, the contents settling uneasily.

Still rigid with surprise and confusion, she repeated under her breath the words she'd learned from Tresses and Runite. She had to puzzle out how to include the clicking — she couldn't vocalize and click her teeth at the same time. The word she was most curious about was free of any difficult sounds, though she wondered if the harshness with which he'd said it was just the proper emphasis.

To distract herself, she spun the fanged bracelet around her wrist. She was still attempting to discern the meaning of the conversation that had made Tresses' stalwart composure cast itself so haphazardly to the side. Runite's apparent regression was only trivial when set in comparison.

"What's that?" Edmund said. Her movements at the bracelet had drawn his gaze to her pocket.

She withdrew the inner jaw she'd taken from the boiler alien. He retracted in his seat.

"I killed one of the aliens."

"You did? Where?" His eyes darted around as though he thought the alien had somehow infiltrated the fuselage again.

"On my way back from Atmospheric."

"Just one? Does that mean there's only one left apart from the queen?"

Nasira cycled through the math — the spitter dead, the boiler dead, the queen alive, and the last warrior alive.

"Yes."

Edmund blew out his breath. "Will the last small one come here?"

She recalled the way it had scrabbled over the seating bays to retreat from Runite's cannon. If the boiler had been smart enough to lure her into a trap, surely the remaining warrior knew well enough to stay away from the fuselage when its enemies numbers were greater.

"I don't think so."

"Without hosts," Marcus said, speaking up for the first time, "they will remain dormant in their hive. Go into hibernation."

Nasira blinked. His eyes were sunken deeper in their sockets than ever before, framed by splotchy bruised circles, and his hair was limp over his face. Taking advantage of his unexpected honesty, she asked,"Where is their hive?"

"Probably somewhere warm. The ambient heat is…" he trailed off, letting his head fall again.

"Warm," she repeated. The engine rooms. The reactor. "Is that why they relocated from the cargo bay?"

"Or because the queen felt it unsafe to be so near after the hive was infiltrated. By you."

"Right." The tiny lair where she'd found Edmund had been more like an afterthought than an actual stronghold. And there had been no sign of the queen. "With her defenders so few, shouldn't we move in on her?"

Marcus's dull eyes fixed on hers with disdain. "You'll sooner find me tuning the live engine of a star freighter with my pants down. Put us on a lifeboat before you run seeking that suicidal bullshit."

She coughed a laugh. "Personally, I'd  _sooner_  see myself decide the former." Standing, she waved the inner jaw before his face, dramatizing its kill-strike, and walked away.

* * *

Siwili was sitting crosslegged on the floor, pulling each of his weapons from its place and admiring them. He looked up when she approached, rattling what sounded like a greeting. She sat across from him and mirrored his position.

His mask turned towards the trophy bracelet she wore — he held out a finger in inquiry. She offered him her wrist. He studied the fang for several long moments before giving a curious chittering sound.

His own trophies were both hanging from his belt and strung over his chest. There were several alien fangs and parasite fingers decorating him, and a series of larger skulls and the orange fur swatch on his chest. Resting above them was the band on his necklace. Apart from the two alien fangs on either side, the wire was left nearly empty. It seemed almost a stylized accessory instead of a place to display spoils.

His attention turned to the alien's inner jaw, still in her other hand, and pointed to the trophies strung across his chest. He mimed displaying the inner jaw on a similar mount. She hesitated, then handed it over.

From his back he drew a kit, which he set on the ground and popped open. Nasira leaned forward to inspect the contents. A set of flat, curving blades that looked like scalpels, a system of tubing with a deflated bag attached, several tubes of colorless liquid, and a length of cord and wire. He selected the cord. It was thin, but he demonstrated its strength by looping one end around his fist and pulling it taut. She nodded.

Making sure she was paying attention, he used one of the smaller blades to pierce the dull end of the inner jaw. There was no blood, even after death. The inner jaw itself was dull grey and yielded almost like rubber. A hollow channel went all the way through to the teeth. He fed the cord through and tied it off, creating a drape that she could duck beneath and wear over her shoulder. He'd adjusted it to compensate for her lack of armor (his own breastplate held it in place), instead turning it into its own kind of thin harness.

She accepted it but hesitated to don it. She was used to adopting a custom for the duration of a cultural event, but never before had she worn the severed anatomy of something she'd slain.

The shortcoming could be attributed to the fact that, prior to this incident, she had never before slain anything.

She kept it in her lap as she spoke next.

"A question," she said, clicking and signing for good measure. She figured if there was one alphabet he'd respond in, it'd be clicking, just on the basis of how he spoke to his companions. He couldn't possibly sift through every recording he had to find a way to answer her.

He hesitated and inclined his head, returning a short knife to its place.

"Long Tresses," she clicked and signed, hoping he'd understand that it was Tresses. "And Metal Arm."

He nodded again.

"They were speaking. What did they say?"

Siwili hesitated, then spoke using his mask's playback.

" _Find."_

"Find what? The hive?"

He gave an affirmation.

"Where?"

" _Find."_

So they didn't know. She said, "I think I know where it is. Will you kill the queen when you find her?"

Another affirmation.

"Why was Metal Arm angry?"

Siwili leaned back, looking almost uncomfortable. He spoke aloud, his voice deep and garbled. " _Young."_

She blinked. "Metal Arm is young?"

He nodded.

"He's angry because he's young. Because…" She thought back to the way he'd tried to argue with Tresses. "He's not allowed to come to the hive."

Siwili pointed at Nasira, sweeping a hand over the side she'd injured.

" _Stay."_

"He has to stay with us. Because of…me?" Upon returning from the airlock, Tresses had turned Nasira to inspect how the burn was setting. "Because of my injury."

Siwili made a pleased sound, like he was glad she'd caught on so quickly.

"And Long Tresses' laughter?"

He shrugged. Despite the volume of their exchange, he had not heard.

"Long Tresses laughed. Because of Metal Arm's word."

Nasira attempted the word Runite had said so harshly. Siwili's head jerked up in immediate understanding.

He repeated the word the way Runite had. Slowly he said it, seeking confirmation. " _Lou-dte Kalei."_

"Yes. That word."

Siwili's massive shoulders quaked. He let out a laugh that sounded almost like he was in pain at first, but instead of tapering off into rattling afterthoughts like the others seemed to do, he kept going until he sounded almost human — rougher and deeper, but the connotation was the same. A long, sustained laugh. Something she said was funny — he was positively howling now.

"What?" she urged.

If he were a human, he would've wiped his eyes of tears. He fought to control himself long enough to attempt a sign. He cupped a hand to his middle and curved it down, but sitting as he was, it was not easy to understand.

"What?" She said again, now confused.

Siwili boosted himself onto his knees, still chortling. He put a hand half over his mask — a perfect Yutovian sign for "half", "incomplete". Young.

"Metal Arm," he signed. "Young."

"You already said. He's not allowed to go to the hive." All three predators seemed prone to eruption, Siwili the mildest of them, unless, evidently, it involved a funny joke. Runite seemed to have the most volatile temper of the bunch, and always with less of a reason. "Yes, Metal Arm is young."

He signed, "Long Tresses." And pointed at himself, his action now. "Long Tresses laughed."

Even though he was now speaking in proficient sign, it took even longer for him to formulate a response, as he kept laughing between them. Nasira was getting weary, unsure if she wanted to even hear the joke anymore.

"Yes, she laughed, why?"

He made the same sign as he had before. She understood it, but couldn't guess at his meaning.

"Metal Arm. Young." He pointed at Nasira. And made the sign again.

Her eyebrows cinched.

Siwili laughed harder than ever, and then, with no embarrassment whatsoever, rotated his hips.

All she could say was, "Oh."

He clutched his stomach. Until a minute ago, she didn't think it was possible for someone of his size to be so wracked by laughter that he had to double over.

Metal Arm, young. Nasira. Siwili's…exhibition.

"Oh," she said again.

* * *

When she left him, he was calmed enough to be sitting and inspecting his weapons again, though he was still laughing in spurts so that he almost nicked himself with his own knife. She figured it'd be easier for him to get over it if she left his sight, but it seemed that he'd only quieted when he did out of attempted politeness to her. As soon as she turned the corner, he broke up again.

Edmund peered over the back of a seat at her from some distance away, but she refused to meet his eyes.

Nasira found the predator she was looking for on the far side of the fuselage. He was testing his wrist blades, extending them a few inches at a time and then sweeping them back into their guards.

Runite stood alone, Tresses nowhere to be seen, so Nasira settled on the next best way to summon her.

The spear telescoped to its full size as she swung horizontally — the shaft struck his metal arm, a clear ringing sound shattering the quiet. Runite whirled around, snarling, but she'd already retreated several paces and was out of reach of his bared wrist blades.

It was as though she'd conjured the other two predators out of midair. They arrived to see several feet of tense space between Nasira and Runite, who was still flexing his forearms threateningly. Tresses gave the kind of low rattle that made Nasira think of a stalker in the long grasses — just a single provocation from springing to attack. Siwili kept his distance.

Marcus and Edmund arrived several slower moments later, standing a safe distance behind both pairs.

Runite's arms were to his sides, his knees bent in a fighting stance. She stood before him but directed her words to Tresses. Nasira squeezed her tone under her control — she needed to convince Tresses, not retaliate due to what Siwili had told her.

"My injuries do not prohibit me from accompanying you to the hive. I  _will_  go with you to kill the queen."

Siwili's shoulders went up, making him look almost sheepish. Tresses clicked, shifting her weight as she considered Nasira's words.

Nasira continued. "I am responsible for securing this ship and ensuring that it is safe for its inhabitants, and I will not rely on the words and efforts of others when I am fully capable of completing the task myself."

Tresses's mask kept moving from Nasira to Runite, who maintained his threatening posture. Nasira turned an obstinate shoulder in her direction, keeping her stance determined, her eyes hard, just as she had when she'd first encountered them. She'd won over Tresses like this before, and she would do it again.

Tresses came forward, the cold gaze of her mask staring Nasira down, filling her vision. The height disparity between them had long since become routine, but something about the stark, sculpted lines of the huntress' muscles and the fractal honeycomb texture of her eyepieces daunted her in the way even the other predators could not.

It was as though Tresses' inherent authority transcended the contrariety of their respective biology, binding Nasira to commanding instinct of a species not her own. Her body's desire to quake, to tremble, to lie down before her obvious better was almost overwhelming.

She was to what primordials threw themselves. To what they worshiped. To what they feared above all else.

And Nasira had to find it in her meager self to challenge this, to hold steadfast against her gaze alone.

And that was only the beginning.

"I will prove it to you."

Tresses pointed at the weapons's holster on her leg. Nasira bent to remove it without the slightest of hesitation, handing it over. Tresses discarded it onto a distant seat. The spear and the knife joined it.

Weaponless, Nasira moved away, aiming for the clearing in the center of the fuselage. She stood all the way at one of its ends and bowed her head, preparing herself for what was to come.

She heard the group follow her, silent but for Marcus and Edmund's footsteps. She grimaced — she did not want them to bear witness to what might be a failure, else they decide they had no reason to answer to her. But there was nothing she could do about it now. They would watch as Tresses' decision was determined.

Nasira felt the space at the other end of the clearing disrupt. She turned to face her opponent, but it was not Tresses who had stepped up to bear.

Runite's shoulder plates dropped to the floor with a clang that made her flinch, betraying the nervousness that had been brewing within her since even before she'd first issued the challenge. His gauntlets followed, as did his shoulder cannon, until he stood unarmed before her.

In hindsight, it was only logical that Tresses delegate her task to another. It was a commendation to Nasira's nerve — and the doling out of mercy — that she would face another, rather than the eminence she'd challenged. And who better to hand it off to than the one who also desired the same spot in the prospective hunting party?

His mask still concealing his face beneath, Runite snarled at her from across the twenty-foot diameter of the clearing, then dropped into his bent-kneed, arms extended stance. Her stomach turned over as his thunderous roar reminded her of their previous confrontation.

At the edge of the nearest seating bay, Tresses arms folded across her chest. The message was clear.

Trial by combat. They would fight for the right to journey to the hive.


End file.
